Hoping
by i-took-an-axe
Summary: Years post DR3, Makoto and Kyoko decide to start a family. It proves more difficult than they expect. (Cross - posted from AO3)
1. Chapter 1

They'd only been dating a month when they first discussed it.

It was Makoto who broached the subject - or, rather, Makoto who tripped over the subject, obviously having planned to talk about it with her but having neither the social expertise or the confidence to do so gracefully. And so instead, the topic came up during an otherwise comfortable silence while they washed up after dinner.

"Uh, Kyoko?" He was already blushing, which was how she knew whatever came next was sure to be interesting. "Are we - _um_ , I mean, do _you_... want kids?"

It took her more off guard than it should have. Logically, she'd known the question was bound to come up eventually. They _were_ dating, and quite seriously at that. Besides, ever since the final killing game, Makoto had seemed more keen than ever to look toward the future.

It wasn't even that it was too soon for such a discussion: by now, they'd known each other for four years and she knew - had known for longer than she cared to admit - that she loved Makoto. In the past few weeks, there had even been a moment, a brief lapse she firmly attributed to the poison wearing off, when she'd allowed her thoughts to drift into a sky of cliche and sentiment and felt, with absolute certainty that one day, she was going to marry him.

Her surprise then, came not from a lack or fear of commitment to her boyfriend, but rather, a lack of preparation for the topic itself.

The idea of having children was something she'd deliberately pushed to the back of her mind since she was old enough to comprehend legacies and linages. She could recall how her expectations of having a child had shifted quickly from baby dolls too dull to hold her attention to the six-year old realisation that duty was something some people were born into. The knowledge that as the only Kirigiri heir she was the one required to pass on that duty troubled her, even at such a young age - she had always been uncomfortable with the idea that any child of hers would, effectively, be born with a job.

While it still troubled her to some extent, Kyoko was older now and observed her family creed with much less reverence than she had as a child. Her first strike was pursuing a string of high profile cases, drawing enough attention to her abilities to get recruited by Hope's Peak to pursue closure with her father; her second had been accepting a desk job at the Future Foundation, even if it was allegedly for the greater good. Her third and forth strikes had everything to do with hazel eyes and sacrifice - the first time, it was keeping quiet about a NG code for fear of the heroic and stupid action it would prompt and the second time, it was turning down cases that would take her out of the country after promising to assist with the rebuilding of a certain high school.

Detective work had not _always_ come first for her and although her grandfather had been very vocal about his consistent disapproval and more recently, his _disappointment_ , remarkably, she had yet to be disowned like her father had. She suspected it had more to do with a lack of suitable substitute heirs than it did a genuine change in her grandfather - despite Makoto's insistence the otherwise icy man had a soft spot for her.

She was not naive enough to believe she could have a child and it grow up without the expectations of any other Kirigiri - she was not even sure she would want that, even if it were possible, because after all she was proud to be a detective, proud of her family name and its success. She would _want_ to pass that on if she could. But she was also very aware of the flaws with her own upbringing and had no desire to repeat them.

While she retained reservations about the compatibility of her busy lifestyle with a child - and quieter reservations in the back of her mind about her suitability to be a mother - she couldn't deny her interest was piqued at the thought of making a baby with Makoto. What would it look like? What kind of parents would they be? Makoto would be a pushover, probably, but incredibly attentive - he wouldn't miss a school play or recital, much less leave like Jin had left her. Naturally, she would have to be the strict one, but maybe she'd also be the one they would come running to when they were afraid.

She raised her head to look at Makoto, who was very still on the kitchen counter where he sat, a plate and dish cloth in his lap. "Right now?" she said, with a straight face.

He looked about ready to choke. "N-no! Of course not! I mean, _right_? We're just renting this apartment and we don't have a steady income - "

"- and we've only been dating a month," she added, trying to fight the smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

"R-right!" He was incredibly cute when he was blushing. She wondered if that was genetic. "I'd like to have kids. I'd um, especially like to have kids with you. Just, uh, in a little while."

"Interesting." She prised the now air-dried plate from his grasp and put it away. When she turned back, he was frowning. "What?"

"You got me to give you my answer before you gave me yours, even though I asked first."

"Are you pouting?" Despite trying to keep her tone neutral, it rose in teasing. She went back to washing up.

"Well it's cheating!" Makoto insisted, taking a soap-covered cup from her with a sigh. "You always do that."

"And yet you want to reproduce with me," she pointed out. "What if we had a child and it inherited all of my bad qualities?"

"It's not _bad_ that you can play me," Makoto clarified, "it's just frustrating. I'd want our kid to be like you, though. You're smarter than me."

"You sell yourself short," Kyoko chided gently.

"That's another thing I'd want it to get from you," Makoto piped up, stuck by the thought. "Your height."

"I've told you before, there's only a few inches between us."

"And your eyes," Makoto continued, tilting his head to look at her sweetly. "Cause they're so pretty."

He'd said this before, but Kyoko still felt a fluttering in her stomach at the compliment. She ducked her head and shrugged.

"I'm partial to your eyes," she admitted, trying hard to sound nonchalant.

"Aha! So you do want a kid." Makoto looked immensely pleased with himself at having extracted something resembling an answer out of her.

She met his stare finally. "I wouldn't be opposed to the idea." _With you_ , she wanted to add, but didn't. "In due course."

"How many?" Makoto pressed, eager.

She couldn't help but chuckle at his enthusiasm. "I haven't thought that far ahead." She cocked a brow. "Why? Have you?"

"No." His blush deepened. "I'm just curious."

"Hm. Do you have a preference?"

He raised his fist to his chin and pretended to think. He was...mimicking her. She would have found it irritiating if it wasn't so endearing. "Six," he said, decidedly.

Her eyes widened. " _Excuse_ me?"

Makoto broke into laughter. "Kidding! Ha, _kidding_ \- get it?" He sobered, but there was still a hint of mischief in his smile. "See, I can mess with you, too."

"You certainly can," she granted, letting out the breath she'd been holding.

"Okay, so less than six. Four?" He questioned, "Or were you thinking closer to two?"

"Do you have a special fondness for even numbers?"

"Heh. No, I'm just testing the waters." He leaned forward and tugged her toward him by the hem of her jumper.

"Well, consider them thoroughly tested," she said, but she followed his lead and moved to stand in front of him. She reached up to put her arms around his neck, his legs brushing against her waist. "I think specifics should wait until later, don't you?"

Makoto leaned down to rest his head against hers. After a moment, in a quieter voice, he asked, "Am I scaring you off?"

Three years ago, this conversation would have sent her running for the hills. Maybe the same was true of even three months ago, before she'd had to choose between a life without him or her own mortality. The knowledge that one wrong move back then would have surely resulted in them never being able to be so honest with each other made it much easier for Kyoko to be frank with her feelings.

"I think you know me better than to think I scare this easy." She pressed her lips to his, her gloved hand coming up to cup his chin.

When they broke apart, he brightly said, "So, six is still a possibility?" earning a swot with the dish cloth.

* * *

The next time it came up seriously was six months into their marriage.

They were driving home from visiting Komaru, who had recently taken in a young girl orphaned amidst the despair some years before.

"Sure seems like Emi's settling in pretty well, huh?" Makoto said, referencing the child. He had been hesitant when his sister first told him about the girl she'd found while on a mission with the Future Foundation.

"You're a little young to take on that kind of responsibility," he'd reasoned, and although Kyoko had stayed quiet, she thought he had a point - Komaru was after all, still finishing college - but the younger Naegi was stubborn.

"Emi doesn't have anyone else!" Komaru insisted, staring her brother down. "Didn't Mom and Dad raise us to always help people who need it?"

At the mention of their dead parents, Makoto had relented. He promised to help his sister in any way he could, but Komaru seemed to be doing just fine on her own. She was, after all, not completely alone, as Toko also lived with her and Emi.

"Emi seems very happy," Kyoko agreed, as her husband drove. "Komaru is good with her. So is Toko, surprisingly."

"Right?" Makoto laughed. "I think it helps that Emi likes reading."

"She also likes you," Kyoko pointed out. She poked her husband's cheek. "' _Uncle Koto_.'"

"Well, I _should_ be good with kids," he said, shrugging. "It comes with the territory."

"Do you allow your students to paint your nails, too?" Kyoko teased, her eyes falling to the nails on her husband's right hand - painted a lovely nude pink - as it reached for the stick shift.

"Oh." Makoto smiled sheepishly. "Nail polish makes Toko sneeze and Komaru and you were catching up. Emi asked so sweetly. I couldn't say no."

"Of course not." She gave into both the smile that came next and the thought that accompanied it, even voicing it aloud: "You'll make a great father."

"Yeah?" Makoto turned to her, briefly, with a hopeful expression on his face. "You really think so?"

"Absolutely. You're incredibly loving, you have impeccable patience, you're a wonderful role model." She leaned her head against the window to better watch her husband blush under her praise. "I can't think of anyone who is better suited to being a parent than you."

"Thanks, Kyoko." He snuck a glance across the car at her to smile. "For the record, I think you'd be pretty great too. Emi was totally impressed by your stories about previous cases."

"I think there's more to it than them thinking you're cool, unfortunately." Kyoko's sigh was a little wistful - she knew she didn't have the qualities most people associated with mothers, but neither did Komaru, and she still made it look easy in a way that made Kyoko feel far-removed, foreign. Was it because she, unlike Komaru, had not had a mother of her own to imitate? Or was it because of her cold nature, because she kept people (people who weren't Makoto, anyway) at arms length even now?

"You're also super good at explaining things," Makoto added, perhaps sensing her apprehension. "And you're protective. In a good way. I don't think anyone would dare bully our kid if they knew you were its mom."

"I suppose." Truthfully, Kyoko doubted Makoto's theory very much - surely any child of theirs would be awkward, clumsy and either oddly standoffish or annoyingly enthusiastic, all of which would make he or she the perfect target for bullies.

"Have you thought about it recently?" Makoto asked, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel, an idle tick, but one that usually indicated a degree of anticipation. "You know - us starting a family."

"I've been a little busy," she said, dryly. These days, she devoted her time to re-establishing her detective career and for a while, it had proven difficult. Her reputation had taken more of a knock than she'd have liked, and although she loved Makoto and was proud of his accomplishments, having people recognise her by name because of _his_ previous notoriety as the world's 'Ultimate Hope' stirred something close to resentment within her. She knew it was unfair - had she not been the one to push that particular sentiment so forcefully in the first place? - and she knew she was being weak by letting other people's opinions get to her, but it bothered her nonetheless.

Thankfully, solving a few particularly tricky cases had gone a long way to challenging perceptions. She now had her own agency up and running and had an influx of interesting cases - so many she'd even had to turn some away for practicality reasons. She felt as if she were finally coming into her own and Makoto, to his credit, was nothing if not supportive, even if she did catch the fretful sighs when she came home with mild injuries, or the lonely in his voice on the phone when she was gone for weeks at a time.

"I know you have," Makoto said with a nod. "But...we're _always_ busy. And I've been thinking about it a lot since we got married."

Kyoko knew her husband, knew where this was going. "Not yet," she said firmly. "Not right now, Makoto."

"Okay, so maybe not right this second," Makoto conceded, with a playful smile. "But later this year? If we got pregnant around Halloween, it would mean I'd have the summer months off from work to be with you and the baby."

Something about the affection in Makoto's voice when he said the word 'baby' made her want to simultaneously jump out of the car while it was still moving and run _and_ command him to pull over so she could climb into his lap that very second. Thankfully, Makoto had been stirring such conflictions in her for a long time, so she knew how to handle it.

"Work's picking up for me," she said, steadying herself by smoothing out a crease in her skirt and staring ahead. "I can't afford to take off any time soon."

"You'll never be ready to take a break from work, Kyoko," Makoto said, and although it was said with the same good-natured tone as almost everything that passed his lips, Kyoko didn't miss the strain in his voice.

"Is that a problem?" she asked, very evenly. "Did I give a different impression when you proposed to me? Surely I must have, if you expect me to be 'barefoot and pregnant' within the first year of marriage."

"Hey, come on, you _know_ that's not what I meant," Makoto said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm just saying, I don't think there's such thing as the perfect time."

"Maybe not, but for me, there is such thing as the _wrong_ time, and that would be right now." She looked over at him, but he kept his eyes on the road. "It's non-negotiable, Makoto."

She expected him to apologise for pushing it, or agree with her. Instead, her husband shrugged, a little sullenly. "You're the one who brought it up."

She didn't know how to respond to that, so she didn't. They spent the rest of the drive in silence. When they got into the house, he announced he was going to bed and she didn't follow. She stayed up to do paperwork and when she felt her eyes start to drift shut, she curled up on the couch and yanked a throw over her.

It was some time later when she felt a heavy warmth fit itself around her body. Even with her mind still half-asleep, she knew it was Makoto. He shifted closer to nuzzle her neck. She was too tired to suppress the small hum of contentment that escaped her.

"You realise the entire point of me sleeping on the couch is that we're not sleeping together?" she said, but she let her head fall to rest on his.

"I can't sleep properly without you," Makoto confessed into the darkness.

He had admitted this to her first after only a few months together, and sure enough, she usually noticed a definite darkness around his eyes when she returned from work trips. She surmised it was triggered at least partially by the Final Killing Game and her quasi-death.

"Nightmare?" she asked, tugging a glove off to brush his cheek.

Makoto also had a tendency to have nightmares when stressed. It didn't matter if it was a problem at work, a worry about her or Komaru or a financial issue - of which there had been a few, now they were in the process of buying a house - if it was enough to play on Makoto's mind, it was enough to bring the traumatic happenings of the past pounding back. Usually, it would last for a few nights until the issue was resolved. He would wake up in a cold sweat, images of his friends corpses burning in his mind's eye. Each time, it took a while to talk him down, to reassure him all of that was really over and they were safe now.

"Nah," he said with a yawn, as he leaned into her scarred touch. "I just missed you."

Any residual anger she held onto wilted. "Oh." She let him take her hand in his, let him place his lips to her palm, a peace offering.

"I don't like it when we fight," he said, sounding small.

"It was hardly a _fight_ ," she reasoned.

"Well, disagreement then." He pushed himself up onto his elbows to look her in the eye, taking her by surprise. Assertive was not something Makoto tended to be after an argument. "I was pushy earlier, and I shouldn't have been. Of course I don't just want you be at home having babies, Kyoko. You're too brilliant at what you do to give that up. I'd never want you to, unless it was what _you_ wanted."

"I know." She stroked his hair. "I may have...overreacted, slightly."

Makoto shook his head. "I wasn't listening to you. I just...I dunno, the idea of us having a kid makes me really excited. I know you're right and it's not the time, but I- I think I lost sight of that when you said I'd make a good dad." He ducked his head. "I got carried away. I'm sorry."

If she wasn't over it before, she would have been then: Makoto was too cute to really stay mad at, especially when his crime was something as pure as being overly enthusiastic about their future together.

"I shut you down pretty harshly," Kyoko admitted. "It's a decision we're supposed to make together. It should have been a discussion. I'm sorry, too."

Makoto stretched his neck for a kiss. She pulled him closer to deepen it. When they broke apart, he rested his forehead against hers. She paused like that for a second, taking in the way he was looking at her, before edging onto her side and easing him into the space she left behind so she could put one leg over him and shift to sit on top of his boxers. She pressed herself into him, amused by the way he bit his lip and his hands moved, instinctively, to frame her hips.

"Just because we're not ready to try for a baby right now doesn't mean we can't practice, you know," Kyoko said lowly, before leaning down and kissing the grin off her husband's face.

* * *

It was about a year later when they started trying.

This time, it had been her suggestion as they lay anchored together in bed one night. "I want a baby," she said simply, and Makoto, once he had recovered from the shock, had been over the moon.

By now, they had settled into a new house and were in the process of redecorating. They made one of the two spare bedrooms into an office space, but lately, when passing by the other on her way downstairs, Kyoko had begun to picture it as a nursery.

She was as busy as ever with work, as was Makoto, but they were financially stable enough to afford her taking a few months off. She'd also recently taken on a temporary apprentice, the teenage nephew of a another detective she had associations with in the past. Although Kyoko typically preferred to work alone, Saihara was growing more competent under her guidance, and had begun to ask for cases to work alone. He was unsure of himself still and more readily influenced by emotion than she liked, but he was intelligent and quick-thinking and she had no real reservations about leaving him in charge for a short while. She had gotten the hint, however, that Saihara may not want to be a detective forever, and as such, did not know how much longer she would have the ability to leave her work in someone else's hands.

Makoto had taken on tutoring Emi - which was amusing to Kyoko, given that during these tutoring sessions, he typically called for _her_ to give him the answers - and seeing his pride as the little girl grew in both confidence and skill had definitely played a part in winning Kyoko over.

She explained all of this to Makoto, going into specifics about financials and timing and other logical things, even though she suspected he hadn't heard much beyond her original comment. She asked him if he had an objections, knowing he would say no, and smiled when he pulled her impossibly close and chanted, 'yes, yes, _yes_ ' in a happy whisper like it was a magic spell. The next day, she tossed her birth control pills.

Two months passed. Then three. The excitement that sparked like static between them each time they had sex began to fade into more urgent, more focused lovemaking. He stopped asking her after every time if she felt any different with wide, hopeful eyes.

Four months came and went. Five. She grew impatient, but Makoto's optimism didn't waver. "We just have to try harder," he would tease, punctuated with a wink. She started staying late at work on the evenings he tutored Emi, because watching them together stung, like she was being teased.

After her period came for the six month in a row, she bought ovulation tests from the local pharmacy to track her cycle. They had extra sex on the days it predicted she was due to ovulate. She'd come by during Makoto's lunch break, silencing his offers to take her to a restaurant by tugging on his belt.

Seven months passed. She got tired of hoping. Instead, her mind began to form deductions. Makoto said nothing.

She made an appointment with a fertility clinic, but didn't tell him about it. They ran tests, but seemed unconcerned as they told her the results would be a while, brushing her off on the basis she was still in her twenties.

One night, she arrived at Hope's Peak early for a committee meeting. Although she no longer worked directly for the school, Makoto had impored her to stay on as a board member, along with the other survivors of their class. Ever humble, Makoto wanted the reformed academy to imbody _all_ of their ideals, not just his, and he was always insisting he valued their opinions.

The conference room where the meeting was usually held was occupied by a student council gathering, so Kyoko waited in the gymnasium for the others to arrive. She was unstacking some chairs to form a circle when Aoi Asahina entered and ran to her, yanking a chair from her grasp with ease.

"Kyoko! Be careful!" The swimming teacher scolded. "You need to take it easy."

Kyoko tensed. "Do I?"

"Well _yeah_." Hina glanced over her shoulder, as if to check they were alone. Then, her face broke into a smile and she half-whispered, "Makoto mentioned you guys are trying for a baby! I bet you'll be great parents!"

Kyoko felt her cheeks flush. "I see. And where is he now, Hina?"

Hina's eyes widened in realisation. "Oh. He wasn't supposed to tell?" She winced. "Don't be mad at him - I practically forced it out of him! And I promise I won't tell _anyone_."

"It's fine," Kyoko lied. "Where _is_ he?"

Reluctantly, Hina confessed Makoto had been on a call with a concerned parent. Kyoko thanked her friend in an effort to maintain a semblance of composure until she'd left the room, and then she stormed off in the direction of her husband's office.

She caught him just as he was leaving, files tucked under his arm. "Kyoko!" He smiled. "You're here early. We've been pushed to the gym tonight. I'm on my way there now."

"No you're not," she barked, pushing past him to get to his office, away from the prying eyes of his secretary. "We need to talk."

He followed her, concern etched on his face. He abandoned the files on his desk to hold his hands out to her. "Is everything okay? You look upset."

She crossed the room and folded her arms, putting as much distance between them as possible. "What is wrong with you?"

"Um." Makoto blinked at her, dropping his hands. "Did I do something?"

"Why would you tell Hina we're trying to conceive?" She demanded. Once, Makoto's honesty had been one of his most endearing qualities - now here it was, a betrayal of her privacy. "Is nothing off-limits to you?"

"Ah, shit - did she say something?" Makoto rubbed his forehead. "Listen, I'm sorry, she caught me off guard. I tried to lie, but you know what she's like. She's... _persistent_ , and I suck at lying."

"That's your excuse?" she asked, coldly.

He frowned. "I know I messed up, but we've been married for two years. Are you telling me people aren't _constantly_ asking you when we're going to have a kid?"

"The difference is, _I_ don't tell them our personal business."

"I didn't know it was a secret!" Makoto looked genuinely confused. "Why wouldn't I be able to tell our oldest, closest friend? She's happy for us." He let out a sigh. "Kyoko, I don't understand why you're so upset about this."

"That's because you're an idiot," she said, blankly. She turned on her heel. "I'm going home."

"We have a committee meeting," Makoto reminded her, exasperation rising in his voice. " _Kyoko_."

"Tell them I got a call about a case." She spared him one final glare before slamming the door. "Or better yet, just tell them everything. We both know you will eventually."

In the car on the way home, she called the clinic again to pester the receptionist for her test results. "I'm sorry, ma'am," the woman on the other end of the line said, "it'll be another day or two. The doctor will call you when -"

She cut the call off and slammed her fist against the dashboard, her knuckles aching underneath her gloves from the force. Not having answers, not being able to disprove her theory, left her feeling powerless in a way she loathed. When she burst into tears in the driveway, it was out of frustration, and not at all to do with the way Makoto's mouth had fallen open in sad shock when she'd called him an idiot.

When he got in later that evening, she was in the shower, but she heard his lock turn in the key in between ducking her head under the water. When she came out of the ensuite in a towel, he was waiting for her on the bed, his tie loose around his neck and his suit jacket discarded on the vanity chair where she did her makeup in the morning.

She couldn't look him in the eye. "Hi," she said.

He patted the space beside him on the bed. Reluctantly, she sat.

There was a long beat of silence. He was watching her, carefully, his expression focused. "Kyoko," he said finally, reaching over to tuck a wet strand of hair behind her ear. "What's going on?"

"You should have told me you told Hina," she said, flatly.

"It only happened today." He tilted his head. "This isn't about me telling Hina."

She wasn't quite ready to apologise, even though she knew she'd made a mistake. Still, she managed to acknowledge, "I...shouldn't have called you an idiot."

"I don't care about that." Makoto's brow creased in concern. "Kyoko, something's up with you. You've been... _weird_ for a while now. Distracted. It's because we're trying, right?" When she didn't reply, he sighed and took her hand. "If you've changed your mind, or you're not ready, we can - "

" - it's not that." She pulled her hand away. She almost itched to reach for her gloves - she hated being exposed to him when all she wanted was to put up walls to protect herself. But she knew how much it would hurt him to see her putting them on when he was trying so hard to understand her, and she kept her hands tucked in her lap instead. "I haven't changed my mind. I want a baby."

"Then…?" She could hear the question in his voice.

Something inside her cracked, and a far too agitated, "Aren't you concerned about how long it's taking?" spilled out.

Makoto shook his head. "You were on birth control for years before. I read that it can just take a while."

 _I read._ So he _had_ been concerned.

"I don't think it's that." She turned her hands over, to look at the scar on her wrist where once, the skin had been punctured and poison had bled into her. _I think it's me,_ she wanted to say, but the words wouldn't come.

And yet wordlessly, he understood.

"Kyoko," Makoto said gently, his hand closing over her wrist as he thumbed the scar there with all the care in the world. "You don't know it's got anything to do with that."

"If not the poison, then the anecdote." She hadn't known much about the antagonist drug developed by Seiko Kimura; hadn't cared much for its side-effects when she realised it could save her life. She'd taken it without care for the consequences, knowing it was her only chance at a future where neither she nor the man she loved had to die. When she'd awoken with not much else but a bruised arm and some dull aches, she'd been a little smug at how well her plan had worked.

Which was exactly why this felt like such a slap in the face.

"You don't _know_ that," Makoto insisted.

"Well, not yet." Kyoko turned to Makoto, dully. "I went to a clinic. They ran some tests. I'm waiting to hear back."

Predictably, he flinched back a little, but he kept his hold on her wrist. "Why didn't you _tell_ me?"

 _Because I still prefer to handle things alone, even after all this time; because I wanted to come to terms with my own disappointment without having to deal with yours; because I'm a coward._

She crossed her legs and straightened up. "I wanted to wait until there was something to tell."

"We're supposed to be in this together." She could tell by the way he was holding himself, like a balloon that had been deflated, that he was not angry - just sad. "You shouldn't have to go through stressing about this on your own. I'm your _husband_. You're supposed to be able to come to me."

It had occurred to her it might go this way. Makoto had a tendency to be self-deprecating, particularly when he felt he'd let down someone he loved.

"It's not you," she clarified. "I didn't feel like I couldn't come to you, I just...chose not to."

Kyoko knew this hurt, and she knew it made her look worse, but at least it meant he couldn't blame himself.

"Well, you're telling me now," he said, after a long moment. It never failed to amaze her how easily and fully Makoto could forgive. "I want to be here for you. Things always work out better when we're a team and you know it." Makoto nudged her with his elbow, before hesitating and pressing a kiss to the side of her head. "But you gotta let me in, Kyoko."

She leaned against him because it was easier. "I didn't want Hina to know how long it's been taking. I don't want people to ask questions or making assumptions before I - _we_ have answers ourselves."

"I understand. I didn't give her specifics, just said we're trying. I don't think she got a sense of how long it's been." He may have only been saying this to comfort her, but Kyoko let it go without interrogating further. "And don't worry, I know now to keep this between us."

The next morning, she was laying into Saihara for mishandling evidence when her phone rang. She recognised the number as the clinic. She watched it ring.

"Kirigiri?" Saihara prompted from underneath his cap where she imagined he was wearing a look of apprehension. "Do you need to take that?"

"No." It stopped ringing. Why didn't she answer? "Yes, actually. I should call them back. Track down the brother-in-law for me."

"Sure." He slunk off, but hesitated when he reached the door. "I'm sor-"

"- _Saihara_." Her voice rose in warning. "Go. Don't mess it up."

The younger detective did as he was told. She let out a breath and checked her voicemail. Sure enough, the doctor had left a message, telling her to schedule an appointment. After a lengthy debate with the receptionist about why it was she couldn't get her own damn results over the phone, she gave in and took the first slot they had. She called Makoto because she knew she should, but when he answered and his smile filled the line at the mere sight of her caller ID, she felt herself relax.

"I'll take the afternoon off," he insisted when she told him about the upcoming appointment.

"You can't do that." It was the first time she felt relief, rather than regret, at him knowing about the clinic. Makoto was a soothing presence and she needed to be soothed right now.

"Why not? I'm the headmaster." She closed her eyes and imagined him at his desk, shrugging, his hair messy from running his hands though it all morning. "I have a deputy for occasions like this."

"I'm not sure Togami would take too kindly to hearing you say his role is simply to cover you sneaking off with me in the middle of the day."

"Probably not." Makoto chuckled. "Hey, you missed his rant at the meeting last night. Can you guess what it was about?"

"Oh, let me guess. He thinks 'average' students are a waste of resources and should be shunned?"

It was Byakuya's usual line and had been since the origins of the re-opening. Despite this, in practice as deputy headmaster, he seemed to hold an equal disdain for students of all abilities. He was bad cop to Makoto's good, an arrangement that seemed to work for the most part. Although Kyoko had not always gotten along _well_ with Byakuya, she was glad Makoto had someone more realistic and harsh like herself to balance his idealism out. Hina frequently joked Byakuya was Makoto's work wife, which naturally, wound Byakuya up to no end.

"My girl got it in one," Makoto marvelled, "You're a genius, Kyoko Kirigiri."

She listened to his idle conversation until his secretary called for him. "I can call you right back," he offered, but she told him she was fine. Before they hung up, he thanked her for telling him about the appointment. "Whatever's going on, Kyoko, we'll get through it together - like how we've got through everything else so far. You know that, right?"

Her mouth felt impossibly dry. It was so like Makoto - considerate, loyal Makoto, to say such a thing for the purposes of comforting her, without giving it the thought such a promise required.

"I love you," she said, and he returned the sentiment happily, taking it as an affirmative, when in fact it was more of an apology.

A little under a week later, they sat in front of a specialist and a wall decorated with photos of babies. "My success stories," the doctor said, when he caught them both staring, and Makoto squeezed her hand, but Kyoko didn't return the gesture.

The doctor talked about the scans they'd taken, about how everything looked normal, promising even. Makoto sat on the edge of his seat, still wearing a positive expression, obviously not having sensed - like she had - that the doctor's speech was lending itself to an upcoming 'but.'

"However," the doctor said, flipping the page of his chart, "I'm afraid your bloodwork wasn't quite so favourable."

Makoto's shoulders tensed. "What does that mean?"

"The hormones that stimulate egg production are at abnormal levels. It would seem you're not always ovulating when you should be and if or when your body does ovulate, the quality of egg that's being released isn't what it should be to be viable."

"Why?" Kyoko asked. She wasn't surprised. She'd done her research. This scenario had made her top three most probable conclusions. "What would make that happen?"

The doctor frowned. "A lot of times, there is no obvious cause. It can be related to stress, weight, genetics… it's near impossible to know for certain."

Makoto nodded, accepting this explanation, but Kyoko was a detective, and a great one at that - it was _in_ her to interrogate further.

"What about toxin poisoning?" She pressed. "Could it cause something like this?"

" _Kyoko_ ," Makoto murmured, a plea for her to stop.

The doctor looked between them, visibly alarmed. "Ah, well - I suppose it would depend on what kind of toxin you're referring to?"

Beside her, Makoto had begun fidgeting. He bounced his left knee, anxious.

"You're not familiar with it," she said, brushing the doctor off quickly, resulting in a sharp inhale from Makoto and look of affrontation from the doctor. "But theoretically, it's possible?"

"Certainly. As is an autoimmune disease. Anything that would disrupt the body's natural hormone production could be a factor. As I said, though, it's really impossible to know for sure."

That was all she really needed to hear.

While Makoto asked about their options, she stayed silent. The specialist recommended daily hormone injections in addition to drugs to enhance egg production. He also sent Makoto into another room with a plastic cup and told him to come back when it was filled so they could test his sperm count. Her husband looked about ready to die of embarrassment, but Kyoko couldn't make herself feel sorry for him. When he returned to her, he looked like he wanted to joke about it, if only to break the ice, but he seemed to think better of it and took her hand again instead. She signed whatever paperwork she needed to in order to collect her prescription and they left.

"Dr. Yajima seems like he knows what he's doing," Makoto said, his hand on her small of her back as they stood shoulder to shoulder in the elevator to the main floor of the clinic. "Did you see how many kids were on his wall? He's a pro."

She ignored this and stepped out of the elevator first. "I need to get back to work," she said, as Makoto fell into step behind her.

" _Kyoko_." He caught her wrist when they got outside and tugged her toward him. "I have the afternoon off, remember? Let's just go home."

"I left Saihara questioning a witness - "

"- yes, and he is more than capable." He took a step toward her and perched up on his toes to place a kiss on her forehead. "We should be together right now. Come home with me."

She thought about lying - making up something urgent that needed her attention, or insisting that Saihara was useless without her guidance, but she knew Makoto would see through it.

"I can't just sit at home and think about it," Kyoko said, folding her arms and looking away. "It's not how I handle things."

To her surprise, Makoto did not protest further. He simply sighed and gave her another forehead kiss. "I love you. Please be back for dinner?"

She nodded, because she didn't trust herself to speak around the pressure in her throat. They parted ways to their separate cars and she returned to the agency, where Saihara was hunched over a novel, instead of a case file. He jumped when he saw her - she _had_ said she would be gone for the entire afternoon - and, she assumed, prepped himself mentally for a lecture. Instead, she bypassed him completely and slammed the door to her office.

An hour later, she emerged with the most intricate case she could find on short notice and a composure that would rival that of her younger self. "Let's go," she commanded of Saihara, and when he asked her if she was okay, she told him it wasn't relevant.

"That's...kinda a worrying answer," he pointed out, before she distracted him by firing orders regarding their new case in his direction.

She knew she would miss dinner, so she text Makoto beforehand. He replied saying he was going over to Komaru's for a while, and she understood, because Makoto was not someone who fared well alone in trying times. If anything, it relieved her from the duty of having to go home before she was ready.

It was very dark and very late when she got home. He was waiting up anyway, wrapped in a blanket on the couch. He held it open for her to slip into the space beside him so they could share.

"Our heatings busted," he explained, resting his head on her shoulder. "Talk about a crappy day, huh?"

"Hm. Indeed."

"It um, got me thinking." Makoto stuck his thumbnail between his teeth. "It could be my luck."

"The heating?" Kyoko yawned. She did not realise how tired she was until Makoto was nestled against her. "I mean, _probably_."

"No," Makoto said, quietly. "The fertility stuff."

"Did you not pay attention to _anything_ the specialist said?" Suddenly, she wasn't tired anymore. She shrugged him off and sat forward, letting the blanket fall between them. "It's not you, Makoto. It's not luck. It's me. It's my body with the problem."

"He said he didn't know for sure," Makoto argued. He put his hand on her shoulder. "Besides, we won't know till we get my test results back that it's _just_ you with the issue. Even if it _is_ something to do with toxin poisoning, we've both been given a lot of weird drugs over the years: whatever induced our amnesia, the stuff to make us pass out -"

"It was the _cure_ , Makoto." She glanced over her shoulder at him, lowering her voice when she saw the desperation on his face. "I spoke to Nurse Tsumiki. She agreed the known properties in it were conducive with this kind of long term damage."

Makoto scoffed at this. "There's no way she knows that."

"I have much less faith her in than you do, Makoto, believe me," Kyoko said, "but she did save my life. On this occasion, it's safe to assume she knows what she's talking about."

The next morning, she started the hormone injections. Makoto paled when he saw the size of the needle, and even more so when she held it out to him.

"It goes in my hip," she explained. "The doctor told me while you were busy with…" she glanced at his groin pointedly, "the cup."

"I hate you," he sulked, but he took the needle and waited patiently for her to lay down on the bed and hitch up her pajama shorts.

She kept perfectly still. A moment passed, and then another. " _Makoto_."

"Needles make me nervous!" Makoto yelped. "I'm scared of hurting you."

"You won't, I promise."

"How could you _possibly_ guarantee that? Or, crap, what if I inject the wrong place?"

Kyoko rolled onto her side to point to the correct spot. "Right there."

"Alright, alright." She watched as Makoto took a deep breath. "Just give me a second."

"You have had many," she pointed out. "Stop overthinking it."

"You are getting progressively easier to stab with something sharp, my _love_ ," Makoto said, through gritted teeth.

Kyoko laughed out loud. She shifted back onto her front. "Good. So get on with it."

"Do you want me to count down from three?" Makoto offered, after another beat of silence.

"Makoto, I don't care," she said, trying to smother the second laugh bubbling inside her in favour of sounding stern. "Just get on with... _it_."

She stiffened as the sharpness pierced her skin. It was strange to think her fertility problems might begin and end with something foreign shot through her bloodstream.

"Thank you," she said, grabbing the tissue she had set aside to press to the mark the needle left behind. She didn't want Makoto to see blood and think he'd screwed up.

He abandoned the now empty syringe on the bedside table and flopped down beside her. "I'll get better," he assured her.

"You did good." She brought her other hand up to ruffle his hair. " _Eventually_."

His smile didn't reach his eyes. "Kyoko, you know we don't _have_ to do this, right?" He bit his lip. "I know the doctor mentioned side effects...then procedures if the drugs don't work. It's a lot, and I know you're already stressed out. I don't want you to feel like you can't stop if you need to."

 _Makoto, what if I can't give you a baby, ever?_

The question died on her tongue - dissolved by fear and uncertainty. She pushed it to the back of her mind, like she'd been doing since month four.

"I know," she said, instead.

* * *

The next month, her period was late. She knew she should wait it out - they had another appointment at the clinic at the end of the week, after all, and she also knew it could just be a symptom of the drugs she'd been taking - like the hellish headaches and the very un-Kyoko-like tendency to tear up. And yet her hands shook ever so slightly when she took the home pregnancy test.

Makoto was waiting in the bedroom, fidgeting. She handed him the result, her chest aching at the way his eyes had lit up for just a second, before they settled on the words 'not pregnant.'

"I'll be working late tonight," she told him, turning to the mirror to fix her hair and check her disappointment was really hidden. "Don't wait up, okay?"

Makoto understood this meant she wanted space. For the next few days, he did not protest at the erratic work hours she kept, or her increasingly withdrawn nature. When the doctor assured them his tests results were fine, he looked more despondent than relieved, and she supposed it was because it made the reality of their situation more difficult. Maybe he had even begun to realise he might have to choose between having her and having a child.

He began to spend more time at his sister's and, although Kyoko knew it was only because he didn't like being home alone - and _she_ was the one working all the time - she couldn't help but feel a little jealous. Even if he hadn't told Komaru about their fertility issues (and she suspected he had) just having someone outside of their relationship to turn to for comfort was something she didn't have. Hina was out of the question, being their _mutual_ friend and besides, she'd always been that little bit closer to Makoto anyway. For the first time since planning her wedding, Kyoko found herself yearning for her mother, her father, or even Koichi Kizakura - someone who belonged just to _her_.

As if she had conjured him, her grandfather arrived on an impromptu visit, evoking instant regrets. It was the very last thing she or Makoto needed, but unfortunately, neither of them were quite brave enough to ask him to leave, which was how they ended up locked in their ensuite each morning for Makoto to give her the shot.

"Don't you think we should tell him?" Makoto asked. True to his word, he had gotten much better at injecting her with the hormone, and hesitated for only half the time he had before. And yet, any time it left a bruise, he was distraught and apologetic for hours. "I mean, maybe if he knew, he wouldn't be so…"

"Critical?" Kyoko's lips turned up when she turned to face her husband. She tilted his head so he was looking at her. "That's just the way he is. It's not personal."

From the moment he'd arrived, her grandfather had been very obviously sizing up their life together, wearing an expression that indicated he was not impressed with the estimation. She knew he could hide his discontent - he was the one who had taught her to put her emotions aside, after all - and so she suspected the choice not to had something to do with wishing to intimidate Makoto.

"Right." Makoto frowned. "It's just, you know, he's mentioned a few times about wanting us to...hurry up with a Kirigiri heir, and I don't think he gets its insensitive."

"I don't want him to know," Kyoko said. She knew it would be another strike against her, another family duty she was failing to see through - except this was one even her father had managed. It was worse, somehow, because she knew her grandfather wouldn't even tell her she was letting generations of Kirigiri detectives down down - he would just look at her with pity, maybe the same way he had once looked at her father, and she knew with absolute certainty that that would be the moment she would break.

"Alright." Makoto had gotten good at backing off lately - he sensed she was on the edge, and was being very accomodating of keeping her there, as opposed to nudging her off by fussing. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Can you at least get him to stop making digs about my hair?"

"You do need a haircut," she admitted, tugging on two particularly long strands of brunette to touch below his ear, emphasising her point.

"You're supposed to be on _my_ side," he mock-huffed.

"I always am." She pecked his cheek. "Don't cut your hair. I like it like that."

It was a Saturday, and although Kyoko had promised to be around to relieve Makoto from her grandfather's quiet rath, she got a call on her work phone around noon that couldn't wait. She gave her husband an apologetic look as she grabbed her coat and her grandfather - who she was quite certain knew less about home improvements than she did - listed all the issues with the particular wood Makoto had chosen to use to build their backyard deck.

She was gone most of the day. The case was interesting on the surface, but turned out to be boringly easy to solve. There were parts of it she thought Saihara would get value out of being privy to, but he had confessed to her the day before that he had a date with a girl from school, so she decided against calling, not wanting to interrupt.

Makoto's text messages kept her entertained.

 _Why didn't you tell me your grandfather had such strong opinions about plumbing?_

 _We're going to lunch so we can 'talk' about my 'future.' Kyoko, I think he might actually be planning to kill me._

 _He just wrote me a cheque for a haircut because he thinks I can't afford it myself. I hate you so much right now._

 _Hope your day is going well and you're not working too hard - I can't relate, seeing as I have a job, and not a career, according to Fuhito._

When she returned home that night, her grandfather was at the kitchen table with a cup of tea.

"Have you scared my husband off?" she asked, neutrally, as she crossed the room and poured herself a cup.

Her grandfather snorted. "Hardly. The boy is hiding from you upstairs."

Makoto had been regarded as _the boy_ by her grandfather since they were reunited after her escape from Junko's game, long before she'd even begun dating him. Over the years, she had given up correcting her grandfather, stopped urging him to see Makoto as a man, or at the very least to refer to him by name, because he never obliged.

It wasn't until her wedding day, as she walked down the aisle in her grandfather's firm hold, that she noted for the first time that he eyed Makoto with the skepticism not of a detective, but of a grandfather for whom even someone who had saved the world would never good enough for his only granddaughter, that she understood.

"Hiding from _me_?" Kyoko sat down beside her grandfather. "Why?"

"I made a deduction," Fuhito Kirigiri said, eyeing her carefully over the lip of his cup. "I posed it to him. His attempt at lying was...well, rather excruciating to be privy to. It at least confirmed to me he will never successfully deceive you."

"What was your deduction?" Kyoko asked, although she already had a fair idea. Makoto had stopped texting her rather abruptly and she suspected it had something to do with him saying too much.

"The two of you are having difficulty conceiving."

Kyoko looked down at her tea. There was no use lying - he would see through her. "I don't want to discuss it."

"Then I won't pry." He took a long sip of tea. She found herself mirroring the action, subconsciously. When she was small, she used to hold a pen between her lips, the way he held his cigar; on cases, she would literally follow his footsteps, her feet a quarter of the size of his, because she believed that wherever he was leading was safe, that it was the correct path. She wanted to be just like him, once - had it hurt him, she wondered now, when she stopped? "As your grandfather, however, I do find it necessary to advise you whenever I feel you require guidance."

"I don't think this something you can really help me with," she said. Truthfully, the topic was not only painful to discuss for obvious reasons, it was also embarrassing. She did not want to discuss her and her husband's efforts in babymaking with her seventy-six year old grandfather.

If it were awkward for her, she could only imagine how poor Makoto had felt.

"Kyoko," he said, very seriously, followed by what just might have been the very last thing she ever imagined her grandfather would say to her, "You must prioritize your marriage."

"My _marriage_?" Kyoko blinked at him. Was he trying to suggest she and Makoto just need to... try more?

What had she done to deserve such a mortifying conversation?

"Your father was an only child," Fuhito said, setting his cup down and lacing his fingers together in front of him delicately. "It was common for families of our generation, and certainly our importance, to have two children. An heir and a spare, so to speak."

Kyoko pulled her chair closer, listening intently. Despite everything, her grandfather still had the ability to command her attention - and hold it - like no one else.

"After your father was born, your grandmother experienced some complications. She recovered, but the consequences were that we would be unable to have more children. Eventually, it began to wear on us. We grew apart. I believe we came to begrudge each other. While I focused on my work, she spoiled your father, overcompensating, and well...we both know how that turned out."

Kyoko let this dig at her father slide. "Makoto and I aren't like that," she said, blankly. "We're on the same page."

Her grandfather's anecdote did not make her feel understood - if anything, it made her feel more cheated. Her grandparents had managed to have one healthy child, after all, while she was struggling to even get pregnant. She already knew life wasn't fair, but that didn't keep her from resenting the fact that her grandfather was likening his inability to have a second child he admittedly regarded as a 'spare' while under her bed, there was a box of cuddly toys she was not supposed to know about, a collection Makoto had been quietly adding to for their much wanted one-day baby.

"Are you really sure about that, Kyoko?" Her grandfather prompted.

It was a rhetorical question, but still - she wanted to jump in, defend her marriage, but she was too familiar with the self-righteous way her grandfather thought, and she knew losing her temper would only make Fuhito think he was right.

"When you father left, the first time, your grandmother and I realised how little we had in common anymore. By then, of course, it was too late for us to go back to the way it had been - too many years had passed, too many things had gone unsaid." His eyes narrowed on her. "Do not misunderstand me - your detective duties should come first, above everything else. But that boy, hapless as he may be, loves you very dearly. You would be foolish to allow your determination to have a child to overshadow that."

With that, he stood. "I'll be going home tomorrow - I'm consulting on a cold case. I'll email you the information, perhaps you might like to assist me."

"I have too many of my own cases." It was a lie. She'd simply had quite enough of her grandfather observing her life, reaching his verdicts.

"Very well." He hesitated, before patting her shoulder as he passed by. "Goodnight, Kyoko."

She finished her tea and then went to bed. Makoto was pretending to be asleep when she slipped in beside him.

"I'm not mad at you," she said quietly, a little amused by his fake snores. "You can open your eyes."

The snoring trailed off. He cracked an eyelid. "How do you always _know_?" Makoto sighed as he rolled toward her. "I know, I know, that's a dumb question. You're a detective."

"I'm also your wife," she said. Kyoko reached for his hands to link with her own. She'd stopped wearing her gloves to bed a long time ago. Makoto had teared up the first time and promised she would never regret showing him her scars. "I know you better than anyone."

"You do," Makoto agreed, happily. His arm wrapped around her waist. "So you know I'm _really really_ sorry that Fuhito sussed out us wanting a kid."

"Makoto," she said, as he pressed against her. "Are you happy?"

"That Fuhito knows? Well, _no_ , but I got the impression he felt kinda bad for giving us a hard time about it before so I dunno, I guess it's not the worst thing."

"Forget about him." She turned her head to look at him. "Are you happy...with me?"

Makoto fixed her with a _look_ before climbing on top of her and peppering her with kisses - on her forehead, on her nose, on her cheeks, on her neck. He didn't stop until a giggle escaped her and her cheeks were flushed.

"That's a dumb question," he scolded, finding her hands again and squeezing them. "Kyoko Kirigiri, the girl of my dreams and the greatest detective in the history of the world, doesn't ask dumb questions." He drew back to meet her eyes. "Did he say something to upset you?"

"He implied we're not on the same page."

Makoto winced. "Oh. That _may_ have been my fault." He eased off of her, but didn't lie back down. "He could tell you're more pent up than usual and he asked me if I was putting pressure on you, you know, to have a baby, cause he didn't think it was something you were all that interested in before me."

"What was your response?" Kyoko asked, examining Makoto's bowed head with her eyes.

"I said I hoped not. Then...I got a little upset." He sounded embarrassed, but more worryingly, he sounded guilty.

"You shouted at him?" Kyoko pressed, not understanding. She was sure her grandfather would have mentioned it to her if Makoto finally snapped. She half-suspected that was what Fuhito was hoping for: he made no secret of perceiving Makoto's passivity to be weakness.

"No." Makoto dropped her hands and rubbed his forehead. "I got emotional. I may have cried. A bit. Not a lot! But like, enough for him to look at me like I failed whatever suitability test that was all a part of."

Kyoko frowned. "Why were you crying?"

"I felt bad in case he was right, and all of this - the stress, the medications - is because I pushed you to have kids."

"You know that isn't true." Met with silence, Kyoko tilted his chin up. " _Don't_ you?"

Makoto's eyes were weary. "Sometimes, I wish we never talked about it."

That took her by surprise. "You want a baby," Kyoko said. It was a statement, not a question. She _knew_ her husband - didn't she?

"Of course I do." Makoto's voice sounded too full and so it was no surprise when it wavered under the strain of his affirmation. "I want us to have a kid so badly, Kyoko. But - I want you more. I want _us_ more."

"You still have me. You still have us." She tried to steady herself, while her thoughts spun. "These things aren't mutually exclusive."

"Some days it feels like they are."

At this, she dropped her hold of his face. "I don't know what you're saying."

"I'm saying that sometimes I want to _actually_ go for lunch with you, or watch a movie together or hear about your cases, instead of having sex. I'm saying that I don't like that you're taking a bunch of drugs that are giving you headaches and cramps, messing with your emotions and making you not feel like yourself. I'm saying that lately, I miss you more when you're here than I do when you're not around because even when we're together, I feel like you're somewhere else." Makoto shook his head. "I'm not trying to be like 'poor me', here. I know it's so much harder for you. I just...I love you, Kyoko, and if having a kid means I have to lose you, even if it's only temporary, it's not worth it to me."

"Makoto," she said, numbly, although she had no idea what should come next.

He moved toward her and it was only when he was close enough to touch that she realised he was crying. "You told me you'd never leave me again, remember? You promised."

Her heart ached at the memory. She greeted him at the dock after the Final Killing Game, and after a moment's hesitation, he ran to her and engulfed her in a hug that almost knocked her off her feet. Eventually, the two of them ended sitting together on the ground anyway as she explained her return from death. When she had finished, he fussed over her, asking if she really truly okay, if anything hurt, if he could get her anything. Brushing him off, she gingerly touched her hands to his bruised face and asked just what had happened to _him_.

"I got into a fight," he'd admitted, a little sheepish.

She'd raised an eyebrow. "You can't fight."

He smiled a little, but winced, indicating it hurt. "Heh, well _yeah_ , that's kinda what happened."

She gave a long-suffering sigh, hoping it would lighten the mood. "So this is what happens when I'm not around."

Makoto's eyes had filled with fresh tears then. "Yeah," he said, shakily, nodding his head frantically. "Yeah. So you, you can't leave me anymore. I-I need you here, with me. You're not _allowed_ to just leave me."

Her breath had caught in her throat. _Don't make me cry, Naegi,_ she'd thought. "I can accommodate that," she said gently, with a reassuring smile.

He threw himself into her again, his grip on her fierce and desperate. "Do you promise?" he sobbed, against her shoulder, and she blinked back tears of her own as her hands moved of their own violation to stroke his hair.

"Makoto," she murmured, "I already promised that, remember?"

"Promise it _again_ ," he sniffed. "For real this time. Dying for me still counts as leaving."

She felt her lips curve. "Fair." She'd pulled back from him but he kept his fist gripped to her shirt, ready to pull her back to him at any moment. "I promise. I won't leave again."

Now, she reached her hand out to her husband. "Makoto, I'm right here. I'm not leaving you."

"I'm scared you are," he said, his breath hitching with the effort of maintaining composed enough to speak. "That the stress of all this is driving you further away from me. That one day, I'll look up and you'll be too far away from me to get you back."

" _Makoto_ ," she said, sharply. "Come here. _Now_."

He did not need to be asked twice. Just like he had a little over three years ago, he came crashing into her, all fear and relief, all hope and despair.

For the longest time, they just held onto each other. She pressed her face into his hair and ran her hand up and down his back until he calmed down.

Then, she eased him off her, so she could look him in the eye. "Tell me what you want."

Makoto's eyes fell to the space she'd put between them. "I want whatever you want."

"No." She shook her head. "That's not an answer, Makoto. You're telling me all this for a reason. Do you want to stop trying?"

She expected him to respond with wide eyes and a panicked no. Instead, he bit his lip. "I - think so. It doesn't need to be forever. Maybe, in a year or two if you still want to we can try again, or look into adoption or something. I just - right now, I think I want to stop."

She felt all kinds of disappointed then - in herself, for not knowing Makoto felt this way; in the knowledge that this meant they would _have_ to stop, at least for now, and that that felt like failure; that this of all things was what finally made her husband give up hope.

"I'm sorry, Kyoko," Makoto mumbled, misreading her silence - or, perhaps, reading it correctly.

"You don't need to be sorry." With a sigh, she pulled him close again. "It's for the best. We're still fixing up the house, and we should _really_ be thinking about securing more funding for the academy and besides, I have quite possibly the most inconsistent apprentice ever."

They didn't have sex. Instead, they booked a short vacation. Although Makoto suggested Jabberwock Island, Kyoko was far from enthused at the prospect, so they opted for a cabin in the countryside instead. Then, they laid down together and Makoto sweetly asked her if they could get a dog.

"You're pushing it," she warned, and he chuckled, but she made a mental note to look into it. His birthday was two months away, she could surprise him. Something that didn't shed, she thought, but with enough energy to keep up with her husband.

It was the first night in Kyoko couldn't remember how long that she fell asleep first. She wondered why it had taken her so long to realise how tired she was.

* * *

It was her last evening of five spent in Kagoshima on a case when she first suspected something. She was getting out of the hotel bath when the wave of nausea hit. She steadied herself against the wall and eased onto the edge of the bath. She stayed perched there until it passed, and then she grabbed a towel and dried herself off, forcing impartial thoughts.

Perhaps it was the food. She made a mental note to ask Saihara, who had ordered the same as her almost everywhere they went, if he felt similarly.

The next morning, she awoke to a tingling in her chest. She touched her hands to her tender breasts and felt her heart beating underneath.

Although she had stopped actively tracking her cycles seven months ago when they made the decision to stopped trying, the rough dates remained burned into her mind, and so she knew she was late. But she also knew that wasn't something to dwell on, as she had yet to have a regular period since coming off the hormones and fertility drugs.

She ignored her suspicions until they were in the airport waiting for their flight home. When she felt the urge to pee - the third time in the last hour - she bit the bullet, stopping at the airport pharmacy to pick up a test before joining the annoyingly long queue for the ladies bathroom.

Kyoko was not a procrastinator, but the second she took the test, she turned it upside down and set it on the toilet paper holder. She didn't want to know, she decided - except, exactly two minutes later she picked it up again, because she absolutely _did_.

She managed to stifle a gasp when she saw the word _'pregnant'_ ficker in front of her eyes - moot really, because it only took seconds of realisation for her composure to shatter entirely. In hindsight she wouldn't remember the moment she lost control - the second she gave into the pain of the last two years and the hope hammering inside her and pulled her knees to her chest on the floor of the airport bathroom stall, sobbing like she hadn't since she was a child. How long she sat like that, people coming and going to the other stalls, strangers calling through the door to her to ask if she was alright, she had no idea. It was all so hazy, so brilliant and breathless and surreal, it felt as if she had dreamed the whole thing: perhaps she would have even believed she had, if not for the evidence in her lap, still reading the result she'd longed for for so long. She waited until she was all cried out, until she had begun to feel dizzy from all the crying, before she picked herself up and set about fixing her make up.

Saihara did not need to be the above-average detective he was to figure out something was up. He didn't ask until he seemed to realise he'd been texting his girlfriend for forty-five minutes instead of doing paperwork and had yet to be scolded.

"What's wrong?" he asked her, and although she told him everything was fine, she could tell he didn't believe her. Even as he sat next to her on the plane, he kept sneaking suspicious glances at her. She didn't even tell him off for staring, too distracted doing the math in her head.

When she got home, Makoto was throwing a frisbee for their maltese pup, Nori, in the backyard. Kyoko waited to announce her presence, content to watch her husband cheer enthusiastically for the yelping ball of white fur that already looked bigger than it had been she left. When Makoto caught sight of her in the doorway, he smiled widely.

"You're home!" He abandoned the frisbee - to the dog's chagrin - to walk toward her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and squeezed her tight, before launching into a mile-a-minute catch up, "How was your flight? I tried to Facetime you this morning but it didn't go through - airport wifi, huh? Sorry I didn't text you back last night, I fell asleep - I didn't even need the sleeping pills this time. And oh, yeah," he said, a little shyly as he planted a kiss on her nose, "I missed you."

"Leave the dog outside for a minute," she said, tugging him inside. "I have a surprise."

Makoto's smile turned to a beam when he realised he was being led into their bedroom. He sat down on the bed per her direction.

"Wait here," she commanded.

"Did you get new underwear?" He asked hopefully.

She smirked and pressed a quick kiss to his warm lips. "Better."

She didn't bother to lock the door of the en suite - her husband liked surprises, so she knew he would wait.

Kyoko took the test she'd bought on the way home from the airport from her coat pocket. It was convenient timing, because she needed to pee again, and she had a feeling that was going to get really annoying really quick, but for now she tried to see it as useful.

While she waited for the test to be ready, she looked at herself in the mirror. Tomorrow, she would have to be the realistic one, the killjoy, the one who managed their expectations and pointed out that this was just the first hurdle they had to overcome, that it was still _so_ early to be getting their hopes up.

But for at least the rest of the day, she just wanted to enjoy this moment with her husband.

"Kyoko, I'm _dying_ ," Makoto wined from the other room.

She picked up the test, goosebumps rising on her arms again at the result, before opening the door. Makoto's eyes widened when he saw she was carrying a test. She held it out to him, expectantly. He took it with a furrowed brow and hesitant hands.

" _Kyoko_ ," he managed, after a moment of blinking at the test. Then, his eyes filled with tears, and she smiled before stepping forward to wrap her arms around his neck. He pressed his forehead against her chest.

"Congratulations," she said, softly, stroking his hair.

He touched his hand to her abdomen, just above where her blouse was tucked into her skirt. She felt the giddy butterfly feeling she thought Makoto had worn out years ago. "There's a baby in there," he murmured, just loud enough so that she could hear.

"I don't know that it's a _baby_ yet. More like a tiny collection of oddly-shaped cells."

" _Our_ tiny collection of oddly-shaped cells," Makoto corrected her. When he lifted his head to look at her, his cheeks were damp. "We weren't even trying. After _everything_ \- I can't believe this." He shook his head, but didn't move his hand from where it rested on her stomach. "Kyoko, we're so lucky."

For once, Kyoko didn't refute Makoto's luck with her logic. For once, the detective just suspended her belief and smiled.

* * *

 **At the minute this is complete, but I'm totally down to write more - I'm a sucker for these two and all their potential domestic angst. Let me know what y'all think! Thanks for reading ^^**


	2. Chapter 2

That evening, like most evenings when they didn't have to work, they took the dog for a walk. Their West Tokyo neighbourhood was close to Inokashira Park, which afforded a lovely view of cherry blossom trees that always made Kyoko feel strangely nostalgic, and plenty of space for the dog andMakoto to burn off some energy.

This time, however, her husband seemed content to let Nori amuse herself. Makoto kept his hand in hers, a faint smile on his lips that she didn't think had dissipated for even a moment since she'd handed him the positive test.

"Who do you want to tell first?" he asked, swinging their hands. "We have to tell Hina together. Maybe over lunch? She's gonna be _so_ excited. Komaru will huff if anyone else knows before her, though. What about your grandfather? Should we call him tonight or would he be offended we didn't tell him in person? I'd invite him over for dinner but you know he never comes." Makoto stopped in his tracks, halting her too. He was biting his bottom lip in thought. "Hey, do you think this will make him like me more or less?"

"Makoto." She had hoped his contagious optimism would drown out her own sense of reason at least until morning, but this latest round of excited questioning had abruptly snapped her out of it. "We can't tell anyone yet."

Makoto frowned, his eyes drifting to her stomach and then back up to her face, his forehead creasing in concern. "You think something is going to go wrong?"

She gave his hand a squeeze. "I hope not," she said, quietly. As cynical as she wanted to be - to prepare not only Makoto, but herself, for the worst - she couldn't keep herself from hoping entirely. Kyoko began to walk again, tugging him along with her. "But do you remember what the specialist said? That it wasn't just ovulation that was affected, it was the egg _quality_."

"Yeah, but we got pregnant," Makoto insisted, confused. " _Naturally_. Without drugs or procedures or whatever. That's gottabe a good sign."

She nodded. "Sure. But...it's really early days. The odds are still against us."

At this, Makoto let out a small whine of frustration. "You're just being... _you_ though, right?" he asked, with much less tact than was typical of him. "I mean, no one at the clinic specifically _said_ \- "

" - because I suspect the clinic didn't think we would get this far on our own," Kyoko admitted. She had gotten the impression even at the time that the prescription for six months of fertility drugs was more of a formality in preparation for more invasive treatment than it was a likely solution. She untangled her hand from Makoto's and stopped walking to lean against the fence by the park's pond so she could look at him. "Listen, I'm not saying you - _we_ \- can't be happy. I just don't think we should get ahead of ourselves - there are still risks. And until we're out of the woods, this stays between us."

Makoto visibly tensed. His frown deepened and his eyes got a little wider. "What kind of risks?"

Sometimes, Kyoko really hated that she was the more pragmatic one of the two. It didn't happen often - while she loved Makoto's optimism on _Makoto_ , it would not be useful in her line of work, it was distracting and besides, it came with a vulnerability to pain and disappointment that scared of her, and she'd never been one to scare easy. There were times like this though, when she had to be the one with the burden of bad news, the one who shattered through his admirable optimism with harsh truth and cold facts, that she wished it was not always her who had to break his heart.

Although she wanted more than anything to lie to him, to let him brush her off as being her usual, skeptical self, to allow him longer to revel in this moment than that small window she'd allotted herself, she was already kicking herself for getting caught up in the moment enough to ignore her own reservations. She should have caution-taped the very announcement; she should have known better.

"From what I gather, embryos formed from low quality eggs have a higher likelihood of having chromosomal abnormalities." It was easy to be matter-of-fact about it in front of Makoto, because that was the person he expected her to be. She spoke with such detachment that he could not have known that just a few hours ago, she'd broken down in an airport bathroom stall, her chest aching with how much she wanted this to work out. "And there's a greater risk of miscarriage."

Makoto came to stand beside her, leaning his elbows on the fence to look out over the pond. She watched him, carefully, waiting for the inevitable spiel about hope and luck and how they really just had to think positively and the universe would pick up the slack.

It didn't come.

"Makoto," she said, resting her hand on his arm and turning toward him. She brought her other hand up to his back and smoothed circles there, the way he did when she was obsessing about a case. She didn't know what else to do - it was, after all, only from him that she had learned things like comfort in the first place.

It seemed to work. He leaned into her, but didn't lift his gaze from the water. "It's not fair," he said, thickly.

The last time she'd heard Makoto sound so defeated had been back at the Future Foundation when she'd been his boss and his friend but not his wife; when she'd been the one who had to deliver the news that his parents bodies had been found in Towa City. It had only been then, as the most resilient man she'd ever met crumpled in front of her like a piece of paper, that she really understood the strange space inside herself she'd had for as long as she could remember but had never been able to fill: _orphan grief._

"I know," she said now, because what else was there to say? It _wasn't_ fair. She rested her head against his. "I'm sorry."

It was an all-inclusive apology, not just a show of empathy. It was a condolence for the all the dreams she'd just shaken him out of; it was regret that this situation was one he could have avoided had he married anyone else.

"It's _not_ your fault," Makoto said with conviction, turning to look at her finally. "I'm being dumb. I'm sorry. I'm just scared. I'm happy - like _so_ happy, Kyoko - but...that's why I'm so scared too, you know?"

"I do." She understood a little too well, unfortunately. "I'll call my doctor tomorrow and make an appointment. We'll take it from there."

He perked up a little when the dog ran up to them, yapping impatiently for attention, but still, on the walk home Makoto was quieter than usual. In bed that night, he pressed impossibly close to her back and laid his hand like a starfish on her bare stomach, protective.

Her first doctor's appointment four days later was uneventful. A blood test confirmed she was pregnant and that her body was doing a promising job at making the right levels of whatever hormone was necessary to keep it that way. They were asked some questions about their family history which neither of them were particularly capable of answering. The doctor seemed satisfied anyway and sent them off with recommendations for prenatal vitamins and an appointment for a scan in another six weeks.

"Six weeks is so faraway," Makoto complained, when they left the medical centre. "I thought we'd get to see the baby today."

"It isn't big enough to see properly yet," Kyoko explained. She placed a haste kiss to her husband's cheek before they parted to their separate cars so they could return to their respective workplaces. "Be patient."

It wasn't until that night, when Kyoko rolled over to see him lying awake, staring widely at the ceiling as if it were not 3:04, that it occurred to her that what she'd mistaken for his childish eagerness was actually worry.

"I'm just too excited to sleep," Makoto told her, but the smile didn't reach his eyes.

This went on for days. Even when he did sleep, it was fitful and in short bursts. It wasn't surprising: he was worried, stressed, concerned and that was how Makoto's subconscious manifested those emotions. What _was_ a surprise was that he seemed so set on lying about it.

He insisted he was only up before her every morning so he could make her breakfast in bed. When she'd crack her eyes open in the middle of the night to find him wide awake, he'd rub his face and pretend he'd just woken up too.

"Talk to me," Kyoko said, when she eventually grew tired of letting him think she believed him. "You'll feel better if you just talk about it."

It seemed an obvious solution, even to her, for whom such a solution had not that long ago been a foreign concept. She didn't understand why Makoto, who was so open and emotionally transparent by nature, was suddenly determined to resist so much.

"I'm _fine_ , Kyoko." She had been about ready to list all the ways he wasn't fine - in addition to sleep, he was also eating considerably less and watching her every move with obvious paranoia - but then he met her eyes across the dinner table and she could read the pleading there: _please, just drop it._ "Everything's good. Don't worry about me."

Kyoko wasn't very good at dropping things _or_ not worrying about him, but she also knew how annoying it was to be badgered to open up when you just wanted to handle something alone - and because she wasn't exactly _keen_ to pursue conversations about all the potential negative outcomes, she let it go.

Still, she forced sleeping pills upon him. He put up a fight, usually only turning to them if she was out of town and he was desperate ("they make my head feel fuzzy" "oh? more so than sleep deprivation?") but when Kyoko spontaneously stopped by the academy one afternoon and found him asleep at his desk, he had no choice but to concede.

After that, things improved. Although he still begged her daily to be careful at work, the return of regular sleep seemed to ease his anxiety, which in turn got him off her back at home.

That was, until the occasional bouts of momentary nausea she'd been experiencing stopped being occasional, momentary and limited to nausea.

She knew Makoto was only trying to help when he pressed cold cloths to her forehead or smoothed back her hair when she was throwing up, but ever since she was a child, Kyoko had hated people crowding her when she was sick. She spent most of the day feeling terrible - because, despite being called 'morning sickness' it most definitely did not end at noon - so when she got home at night and Makoto would follow her from room to room asking how she was, if she needed anything, if she'd eaten much that day, it was quite the challenge to keep her cool.

On the day she had to leave a crime scene to throw up, she came home and the smell of whatever Makoto was cooking turned her stomach a second time. Dutifully, he joined her in the bathroom, his hands on her shoulders, her back, her ponytail as she brought up the small lunch she'd managed. Finally, she snapped.

"Stop _petting_ me," she half-growled, wiping her mouth on her arm and flinching out of his touch. "Leave me _alone_."

"Kyoko." He crouched beside her with a gentle expression. "I want to help."

"You can help by _leaving me alone_."

With a sigh, he did as he was told. The look he gave her before closing the bathroom door was much like that which the dog gave her when she put it out of the kitchen to prepare food. _Puppy dog eyes_.

Kyoko stayed on the bathroom floor for most of the night. Standing only added the component of feeling dizzy, which aggravated the nausea. At one point, just moving too quickly for a sip of tap water made her face flush and bile rise in her throat, so she resigned herself to slumping miserably in the corner of the room for as long as it took to pass.

When Makoto came back from walking Nori, he joined her again, despite being snapped at. He sat down against the bathtub and placed a packet of plain crackers on the floor between them in a wordless offer of peace.

Kyoko had been sick two more times since she'd seen him last, so she didn't have the energy to kick him out a second time. Besides, she'd begun to feel a little bad for chasing him. Makoto was just trying to be supportive - it was hardly his fault that in moments like this, his attentiveness felt to her like an intrusion.

"Kyoko?" he said, posing her name tentatively as he tugged on the fold of his sweater sleeve. "What do you think happens when you die?"

She pounded her head into her arm, where it rested against the toilet bowl. "Give me another day of this and I'll be able to tell you."

Yes, she was being dramatic, but Kyoko Kirigiri did not take kindly to being unwell. She had a fairly impressive threshold for pain, she could work around a headache easily, she'd never missed a day of school or work because of periods - but dizziness, vomiting, the lethargy that accompanied _days_ of the two was seriously beginning to wipe her out.

When a cracker hit her shoulder before falling into her lap, she looked up to Makoto, who had thrown it at her. He looked stern. "As someone who has _literally_ died on me in the past, you don't get to make those kinds of jokes." As an afterthought, he added, "You should eat that, by the way. It'll help settle your stomach."

She wanted to throw it back at him. She had a better aim and much less goodwill than he did - she would make _sure_ she hit his head.

But still, her stomach groaned in hunger. With great dejection, Kyoko picked up the stupid cracker and took a bite, giving Makoto a miserable look. "What do _you_ think happens when you die?"

"I always liked the idea of reincarnation," he admitted, before frowning, "but then Komaru started seeing ghosts and I figured that probably wasn't how it worked."

"Your sister has a very vivid imagination," Kyoko warned, wearily, "I wouldn't take it to heart."

"I guess, but I dunno, I think I believe her. It always freaked me out though." Makoto pulled a face. "I mean, the idea of people who died still hanging around, just...watching you all the time - I thought it was creepy."

"I agree." Against her better judgement, Kyoko reached for another cracker. "What would you want to come back as, if you could reincarnate?"

"I don't know anymore. I like being me." Makoto shrugged. "Plus, now I think it's sorta... _nice_ to believe there's an afterlife. It would mean that everyone we've lost is watching over us." He smiled. "Don't you think that's cool?"

"Hm." Kyoko tilted her head. " _Cool_ , maybe, but where's the evidence?"

Makoto rolled his eyes. "You're such a detective. The whole point of faith is you don't _have_ any evidence. You don't need any, either. You just believe."

"Sounds like a pretty biased investigation to me."

Makoto hesitated, scratching his chin. "You know, I've been thinking. If people die and become angels who like, look out for people on earth or whatever, then our kid should be okay."

Kyoko raised an eyebrow. "Because of our excess of dead relatives?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, there's both your parents, Koichi Kizakura, my mom and dad, Sayaka, all our friends from Hope's Peak…" Makoto trailed off, a little wistfully, like he had not just listed off the depressing multitude of carnage they had accumulated between them. "I wish I could see them all. I wish I could talk to them again, you know? I wanna tell my parents I'm doing okay, that I've got a job I love and that me and Komaru don't fight anymore – I know they always worried about that. And I could tell your mom and dad that I'll always do my best to do right by you. I could thank Kizakura for saving your life."

Makoto could be dangerously sweet sometimes. If she wasn't so weak, she'd crawl across the floor and kiss him. She was tempted to anyway, before she remembered she would have to brush her teeth first and that involved staggering to her feet and by then the whole thing would be considerably less romantic.

"I know I'm not supposed to be thinking about names yet," Makoto said, eyeing her carefully, "but I like the name Koichi if it's a boy. I can't buy Kizakura _many_ drinks as a thank you, but I think maybe he'd like this more." _Of course he would,_ Kyoko thought, _he was always arrogant._ Makoto smiled then, not just at her, but _at_ her, with fondness and something like wonder in his eyes. "If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have either of you."

Makoto, who had heard about Kizakura's heroism only after the fact, did not understand how true that was. Not only had Kizakura broken his NG code to save her life, his determination to honour her father even at a cost to himself had only solidified Kyoko's decision to sacrifice herself for Makoto. In the end, Kizakura had given her more than a lifeline- he had left her with the knowledge her father _had_ loved her. Jin's desire to protect her even in death was something she could finally admire him for.

 _You'd do better to stop thinking so logically and express your feelings more,_ Kizakura had told her and although she'd brushed off his advice as useless when he was alive, those were the words she woke up with after Mikan resuscitated her, before she set off in search of Makoto.

"Well, the same is true of both your parents," Kyoko pointed out. Once, she'd found the prospect of meeting Makoto's parents daunting: What if they didn't like her? What if they thought she was too cold, too harsh for their soft-hearted son? What if they secretly wished Maizono was still alive, and that he'd brought _her_ home instead? But then they'd died before she and Makoto had even started dating, and she'd felt more than a little bad for wanting so badly to avoid them. "I wish I could have met them," she said now, honestly. When Makoto looked up at her, she managed a small smile. "I have a lot to thank them for, too."

It wasn't simply sentiment - Kyoko was genuinely grateful to the Naegis. Even if she thought Komaru was childish for her age and Makoto got on her last nerve when he fretted over her, there was no question that they had both been raised to be loving, brave and loyal. To have raised a man as truly _good_ as her husband, they had obviously done a lot of things right. She hoped she and Makoto could do half the job they had.

"Your mother's name was Chiyo, wasn't it?"

Makoto nodded. "Mom always said I shouldn't listen to people who say I'm too nice like it's a bad thing. She taught us the best quality you can have is kindness, no matter what." Even as his eyes filled with tears, he chuckled. "She wanted me to marry someone tougher than me, though. I think she thought I needed protected. She would have _loved_ you."

Kyoko still wasn't sure that was true, but it didn't really matter. She nudged Makoto's leg with her foot to get his attention, and then she held out a cracker to him. "So, Koichi for a boy, Chiyo for a girl?"

Makoto didn't take the cracker. Instead, he pressed his palms to his eyes and threw his head back. "We're jinxing it," he murmured, quietly.

"Makoto, stop. That's not how it works."

"It _is_ ," he groaned. "You know what my luck is like."

"It's not about tempting fate." Luck had nothing to do with why Kyoko insisted they keep the pregnancy a secret or why sometimes, she winced internally when Makoto placed a goodnight kiss to her stomach before going to sleep. "It's about trying not to get our hopes up."

"Too late," Makoto admitted dully, before throwing his hands up in defeat. "I can't _help_ it."

"I know." And didn't she love him for that? Kyoko sighed and forced herself up from the floor, steadying her balance against the sink before holding her hand out to him. "Come and lay down with me."

* * *

The weeks until the first ultrasound seemed to drag. Kyoko kept busy with work and eventually, the sickness eased enough that the sight of blood didn't drive her out of a room and she could immerse herself fully in investigations again.

As much as she rejected Makoto's apparent belief she was made of glass, and as much as she was determined not to allow her personal life interfere with her work, finally being pregnant after _wanting_ to be for so long had her treating jobs with more caution than she ever had before.

When a man who had beaten all three of his previous female victims to death escaped from police custody mid-arrest, Saihara took off after him on foot, only stopping when Kyoko called to him. "It's not our problem if the police can't keep a hold of a suspect," she said, when once, she would have thought nothing of putting herself in a showdown between a violent offender. It would have given her a self-righteous buzz to catch him a second time, to see the look on the officers faces. "We solved the case, let them handle the rest."

Saihara didn't argue. Kyoko knew he had worked out she was pregnant after only a few weeks but was kindly pretending he hadn't. She appreciated this, because the other detective in her life was not so gracious.

"You're pregnant," her grandfather stated abruptly, when they met for lunch to confer on a case. "If you're curious, it's the sickly pallor and blemishes on your face that give it away."

"Thanks for that," she said dryly, but in truth, her grandfather's honesty was a little refreshing in contrast with Makoto's endless insistences she was 'glowing.'

Fuhito was not put off by her tone. He gave a shrug and returned to the files in front of him, flipping the pages quickly and with purpose. "Well, you've always had impeccable skin - you get that from our side of the family, of course."

"Of course." Lest he credit anyone else for _anything_. "I'm still going to need you to act surprised when we tell you properly in a month or two."

"Why on earth would I be surprised?" Fuhito frowned. "It has taken an _age_."

That shouldn't have stung, but it did. She looked away, mad at him, but more mad at herself for being sensitive to the jab. Kyoko still hadn't forgiven her body for failing her, for making her feel more and more powerless every month when her period came, for making her ready herself every time she pulled down her underwear now that she finally was pregnant, for fear of seeing blood.

"Don't sulk," her grandfather chided tautly. "It's not like I'm blaming the boy. If I were as cruel as you think me to be, I would have encouraged you to leave him for someone who could give you an heir. If you remember, I advocated _for_ your marriage, not against it."

Kyoko looked up, confused. "Makoto told you it was his fault we couldn't have a baby?"

"He didn't need to." Fuhito waved his hand, brushing off the tedious distinction between what was said and what he perceived. "It was apparent he blamed himself, what with all the... _crying_ and so on."

She knew Makoto had felt bad for being so vocal about wanting a child because he thought it pushed her away from him when they weren't successful, but she didn't know he'd allowed Fuhito to think it was a problem with him that caused their infertility. Knowing how proud she was, her husband had chosen to be compliant in letting her grandfather's disappointment and pity be directed at him.

Kyoko made a mental note to thank him, but then she came home to him stressing about the upcoming school inspections and it slipped her mind. When he woke her up that night mumbling and whining in his sleep, she assumed the nightmares were a result of the same work pressures. She shook him awake, his head thrashing around on the pillow, and he came to with wide eyes, gasping and trembling a little under her touch.

"It's alright," she said, soothing her fingers through his hair as he sat up in bed, blinking at her as if she were a ghost. "It was just a dream. You're safe, Makoto."

"I'm s-sorry," he said, his voice hitching with leftover fear. "I woke you. I'm sorry."

"It's fine." Kyoko leaned against him. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No. You go back to sleep." Makoto pulled away from her to stand up. "I'm gonna go have some tea."

"I'll come with you."

"Don't." He eased his hand out of hers. "Honest. I feel bad enough that you're up."

She smiled a little. "You realise we'll have to adjust to not sleeping through the night?"

"Which is why one of us should make the most of it while we can." He kissed her forehead. "Go back to sleep," Makoto said, this time more forcefully. "I'm fine."

The next night, it happened again. And again. And again. In total, it went on for eight consecutive nights, long after the academy had sailed through the inspection, until the day of the scan.

In the waiting room, his hands were shaking. She took one of them in hers, hoping to reassure him, but it only made him twitch more.

"Ms. Kirigiri?"

After a brief discussion with the doctor, she hopped up on a table and lay down, undoing the bottom four buttons of her shirt to expose her stomach. Makoto sat in the chair beside her, one hand on her wrist, another at his mouth, where he was rapping his thumbnail against his teeth anxiously.

The gel was cold and the transducer was firm as it pressed into her. The sonographer admired the screen with an expression even Kyoko could not read for what must have been the longest moment of their lives before turning the monitor for them to see.

Despite all the annoying grey flickering, the outline was unmistakable - the curve of the head, the tiny hands, the legs tucked in. Before the sonographer could capture the image, the legs straightened and the head went back. Kyoko felt a breath catch in her throat. She hadn't expected to actually see it _moving_.

"Someone's active," the sonographer said, with a fond smile.

Kyoko turned to her husband, who was blinking back tears as he leaned closer. She brushed her gloved fingers to his cheek and followed his gaze, to the clearer profile of the head, the more clearly defined nose and chin.

"Let's take a listen to the heartbeat," the sonographer said, breaking their shared silence. She flicked a switch and pressed the transducer harder against Kyoko's stomach. The quick, consistent pounding that ensued had her letting out sigh of relief she didn't even know she'd been holding.

"Is that alright?" Makoto asked nervously. "It sounds really fast."

"It's perfect, don't worry." With a few clicks of the machine, the sonographer dragged a line across the screen to measure the length. "Measuring just on the small side for twelve weeks. Everything looks good though, so it's probably just a mistake in your dates." The sonographer gave Kyoko a wink, "or maybe baby just takes after daddy."

Kyoko met the joke with an amused smile, but Makoto didn't. "Are you _sure_ everything's okay?" he pressed.

They were reassured once again and sent on their way with the pictures. Makoto held the strip of images all the way home while she drove, sneaking a glance at her husband every so often to see him studying each frame carefully, touching his finger to his favourites reverently.

Even as she climbed into bed beside him that night, he was fawning over them. "I think it's going to look like you," he declared, pointing aimlessly to one of the scans where they could make out the facial features, "that looks like your nose."

"It's looks like _a_ nose," she corrected, resting her chin on his shoulder to admire the pictures too. "You should pick your least favourite. Hina will probably want one." Kyoko pressed a kiss to her husband's cheek. "If I get the locked room case wrapped up by noon, I can come by tomorrow for lunch. We can tell her then if you'd like."

"No," Makoto said, quietly, folding the images away and putting them on the dresser by his side of the bed.

"No?" Kyoko echoed. "You already told her?" It wouldn't be surprisingly really - Makoto _was_ terrible with secrets and even if Hina had not known him such a long time, he'd been acting so weird lately he was bound to have given the game away. Kyoko couldn't be _that_ mad - Saihara and Fuhito knew too, after all, even if she hadn't explicitly told them.

"No, she doesn't know." Makoto settled under the covers, too still. "I just think maybe we should hold off for a few more weeks. Or, I dunno, until we can't hide it anymore."

" _Um_?" Kyoko sat up in bed to stare down at him. "Who are you and what have you done with my husband?"

"I just - it's still early," Makoto said, avoiding her eye as he ran his fingers hand along her arm. "And anyway, I like it being just _our_ secret, don't you?"

Of course she did - she did not want his sister and their friends fussing over her and dragging her shopping with them. In an ideal world, Kyoko would avoid them all until the baby was born and they could bother it instead of her. But Makoto hated lying - she'd assumed that was part of what had been stressing him out so much - and he loved a celebration. This hesitation wasn't like him at all.

She _wanted_ to wait longer before telling people, had only suggested it now because she thought it was what was best for Makoto - both to snap him out of his worry and to give him the support system she suspected he would need if something beyond this point _did_ go wrong. So why was he so against it?

"You still think you can jinx this?" she asked, blankly.

Makoto's silence was telling. She sighed and rolled her eyes but let him change the subject when he spoke again - something about wanting to build a crib himself rather than buy it. She told herself when he was ready, he would come to her, and that getting mad at him for shutting her out wasn't the way to go about it.

The nightmares didn't come that night, at least.

* * *

"Did you know the piano is actually a member of the percussion family?" Saihara asked her, a textbook balanced on his knees in the passenger seat of her car as they staked out the offices of their suspect. "Most people think it's a string instrument, but its strings are struck instead of plucked, so that disqualifies it."

"I thought you were studying for your _chemistry_ final."

"I am. I just, um, got distracted." The teenager sank lower in his seat. "Don't tell my uncle, but I'm failing chemistry."

"I can't imagine why." She didn't bother to hide the sarcasm in her voice. If Saihara spent as much time balancing equations as he did learning to read sheet music to impress his girlfriend, his grades would be just fine.

"You know what a hydrolysis reaction is, right?"

"I'm not helping you."

"It's when a molecule reacts with water and its forced to break into two components. Sometimes it reaches equilibrium, but sometimes it doesn't, and then all the atom bonds are broken and there's no coming back from it." Shuichi sighed a little, his fingers tapping idly against his thigh. "Being a detective and being in high school is kinda like that."

(Being a detective and being a wife was like that, too, but Kyoko didn't say that out loud.)

"It's a good thing you're almost done with school, then," she said, evenly. In an unspoken exchange for ignoring her pregnancy, Kyoko was pretending she didn't know Saihara spent his time between cases researching liberal arts colleges.

Naturally, she thought it was ridiculous. Not only was it a waste of his potential as a detective, it was impulsive and foolishly rooted in chasing his high school love. But she also knew that Shuichi's self-esteem would probably benefit from some time to figure out what he wanted and who he was and that wasn't going to happen in the constant shadow of her and his uncle.

The vibrations of her phone broke the silence they lapsed into. She frowned at the area code of the number - the internal extension for Jabberwock Island - and ordered her apprentice to keep watch while she took the call.

"M-Mrs. Naegi?"

Mikan Tsumiki. "I told you last time we spoke, it's _Kirigiri_. I didn't change my name."

"I'm s-sorry!" the nurse squeaked, and Kyoko was already regretting taking the call. "Forgive me!"

"It's fine." Through gritted teeth, Kyoko tried to sound neutral when she asked, "Is something wrong?"

"N-no! I couldn't get a hold of Mister Naegi is all." There was a pause, and then something resembling a wail. "It's my _fault_ \- "

Conversations with Mikan tended to go in circles. Kyoko stifled a sigh. "What do you want with Makoto?"

Whatever was going down on that damn island, like hell was Kyoko about to let them drag her husband into it. He'd just started sleeping through the night again. Now was _not_ the time.

"He n-needed _me_!" she insisted. "That's why I called. He asked me to do some r-research for him. Please don't blame me!"

"I see." Kyoko had a hunch where this was going, but she figured she'd get more out of Mikan if she just let her loose. "And what did your findings return?"

"There's no r-reason the antagonist drug you took would directly affect fetal development or increase the risk to your life during pregnancy, aside from the f-fertility problems we discussed before." There were voices in the background and then another squeak, high-pitched enough that Kyoko pulled the phone back from her ear, just in time for Nagito Komaeda's eerie purr to fill the speaker.

"Congratulations Kirigiri. There's much _hope_ to be had in the promise of a new life _-_ "

Saihara, over-hearing this, gave a small smirk, presumably out of pride that his suspicions were indeed correct.

Well, Kyoko thought, this was officially the worst kept secret _ever_.

She hung up on Komaeda's weird rasping and frowned. She didn't know why Makoto - who had been so adamant they didn't know Seiko's cure was the reason for their struggle getting pregnant and had scoffed at the credibility of Tsumiki's opinion - was suddenly calling the nurse up, behind her back no less, to discuss possible side-effects going forward.

That night, he was kissing her neck, trying to lure her away from her laptop to the bedroom, when she decided she'd had enough of waiting for him to volunteer the information and demanded to know why he called Mikan.

He stilled. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"That's really creative." She closed the laptop. "If you're going to lie to me, at least make an effort."

Surrendering, Makoto sat down beside her at the kitchen table. "I just had some questions for her."

"Why didn't you just ask _me_?" Kyoko said. "She didn't know anything that we didn't already."

"Yeah?" Makoto seemed unsure. He wanted more details before he could accept the reassurance, specifics about what Mikan said, but before she'd give him that, Kyoko wanted something from him.

"Makoto," she said, trying her best to sound approachable despite her frustration, "what's all of this about?"

He looked away from her guiltily, scratching the back of his head. "I'm _fine_. Actually, I'm kinda tired." He took her hand and tugged it. "Let's have an early night. Come to bed."

"No." Kyoko dropped her hand. "We're not doing this anymore."

Makoto's smile was weak. "What, _sleeping_?"

"This." She gestured to him. "Whatever _this_ is. Bottling things up, sneaking around trying to figure stuff out without telling me, refusing to let me help you when I know you need it."

"Yeah," Makoto deadpanned, the edge to his voice implying he was only half-joking, "can't imagine how much _that_ must suck."

Petty as his retort was, it gave her pause. She had learned a lot of things from Makoto about feelings and family and what it was to _actually_ love someone more than yourself. Had she ever stopped to think about the lessons she'd been teaching him?

"I'm different," she admitted. "I was raised like that. It's how I deal with things. It works for me. But you're not wired the same way, Makoto. _That's_ why I'm worried."

"I'm not _trying_ to worry you." His eyes softened in apology. "I'm just...being strong."

"You _are_ strong." She wanted to blame Byakuya, who was forever telling Makoto to 'man up' and not let his emotions get the better of him, or her grandfather, who used his softness as an excuse to patronise him, but deep down, Kyoko knew the opinion he really cared about was hers. If this was all to give the illusion of being tough, it was because he thought that was what she wanted. "But...this isn't what your strength looks like."

Makoto didn't answer that, he just let his gaze drift to the floor. With a sigh, she reached out to squeeze his shoulder. "You used to tell me everything. I couldn't get you to shut up about how you felt." When he looked up, with weary eyes, she forced a smile. "I _miss_ that."

And just like that, Makoto's eyes filled with tears. "It's all my fault."

"Well, it's on me too." She brought her hand to his jaw, to tilt his head toward her. "I don't tell you enough how much I admire that you wear your heart on your sleeve. It was one of the first things that interested me about you."

"Not that." Makoto shook his head and sat back in his chair, his shoulders slumped. "All of this…the problems we had getting pregnant, the risk to the baby. It's on me."

Was this seriously about his _luck_ again?

She knew it wasn't indicative of a supportive spouse to be irritated, but they'd already beat the topic to death before and after getting pregnant. She was getting pretty fed up of having to repeatedly acknowledge that the only thing cursed about all this was her body.

"Makoto, we established this. It was the cure."

"Right," Makoto said, surprising her as he met her eyes. "The cure you only had to take because you were going to be poisoned for _me_."

It clicked then - the reason Makoto had called Mikan, but also the explanation for why he'd been acting so out of character, so defeated; the basis for why he'd allowed her grandfather to think it was his fault they couldn't get pregnant and his reluctance to believe the cure had been to blame in the first place.

It wasn't worry that was giving him nightmares – or, at least, it wasn't all worry. It was guilt, too.

He felt _responsible_.

It was a stretch, but it was one that was just like a sleep-deprived, self-critical Makoto to make. She should have _predicted_ this.

"If it wasn't for me," Makoto said, grimly, "you'd probably have a bunch of healthy kids by now with somebody else."

"I wouldn't want that with somebody else," she corrected, frowning. "And our baby _is_ healthy."

Makoto bounced his knee. Had he always done that when nervous, Kyoko wondered, or was that tic born from all the trauma he'd faced? She wished, not for the first time, that she could remember the year they spent together at Hope's Peak before everything, for reference.

"The ultrasound tech said it's too small. That could mean it's not growing the way it should be, or that it has some defect that doesn't show up on a scan or –"

" – or that you're 5"3 and it has half your DNA, or that the pregnancy was just dated wrong because my periods have been all over the place for over half a year." She shook her head. "Makoto, you have no evidence anything is wrong."

"You were really sick," Makoto added, his voice quick with panic.

"Which is like _the_ most common symptom of pregnancy."

"I _know,_ but – "

"How long have you been feeling like this?" Kyoko cut in, narrowing her eyes. "Be honest. I'll know if you lie."

Makoto squirmed a little under her stare. "I dunno. I guess since the first appointment at the clinic. Are you saying you don't blame me? Even a little?"

"Of course not. Makoto, not _once_." It was the truth - in her desperation to justify her misfortune, she'd blamed Seiko for whatever was in the stupid cure; she blamed Kazuo Tengan for the needlessly cruel NG code that left her with no choice but to be so reckless; she blamed herself, for thinking she was smart enough to cheat death over and over again without consequences.

"It's bad enough what happened to you – every time I dream about it, I wake up feeling like I killed you," Makoto flinched even now, "but then to see you go through everything you had to to get pregnant and then when we did, thinking that something could go wrong…Kyoko, if anything happened to you or the baby because of what you had to do for me, I'd never forgive myself."

"You died for me," Kyoko reminded him. "Fifth Trial. Junko's game. It should have been me, you could have sold me out, but you didn't. You didn't even love me then and you were willing to die for me."

"Well, I think I loved you a little bit," he admitted, blush in his cheeks returning colour to his face.

"Why is it that you could do it for me – in a scenario where I even had the power to prevent it – and it's just a given, but when I sacrificed for you - having actively hidden it from you - you blame yourself?"

"Because it was my choice."

"And the second time, it was _mine_." Kyoko shook her head. "You didn't kill me, Makoto. I had time to think about it – more time than you did when the situation was reversed. I knew the world would be a better place with you in it. I knew the world needed you."

"Exactly. It was _my_ ideals that forced you into that situation. If it wasn't for all the hope stuff, you wouldn't have felt that way."

"No. I would have done it because I loved you." She tilted her head to fix him with a sceptical look. "Are you going to blame yourself for me falling for you as well?"

"If _not_ falling for me would have meant that wouldn't have happened to you, then yeah."

"You're looking at this wrong." Kyoko sat back and folded her arms. "My 'death' brought us together, didn't it?" Predictability, Makoto smiled a little at the memory she prompted. "I won't argue that last year was difficult, but we got through it and our marriage is stronger for it. And you can't tell me wanting this baby for so long isn't going to make us better parents."

"You know," Makoto said, sniffing, "losing you definitely made me more grateful for every day we get together now. That's the only good part about the nightmares. That when I wake up, I get to look over to you and you're _there_ and it's…" his eyes filled with fresh tears, "it's like I can pretend none of it ever happened."

"There you go." She leaned forward to wipe his cheeks until they dry. He smiled into her touch. "What?"

"You're pretty good at the positivity thing these days." With a mischievous tone, he added, "Must be motherhood making you soft."

She glared. "You don't want to irk someone with the pregnancy hormones and extensive knowledge of murder that I do."

It made him chuckle at least. "I'm kidding. You've _always_ been able to put me back together."

"It's my job." Kyoko shrugged. "And _yours_ is to get on my nerves with how much you want to talk about our feelings all the time."

"Deal," Makoto said, visibly happier.

Kyoko stood and walked toward the fridge, where they had magneted the roll of scan pictures. "Get your coat. We're going to Hina's."

Makoto glanced at his watch. "Now? It's a school night."

"Tough. The whole of Jabberwock Island know we're having a baby. Hina has been a good friend to us for a long time, she's not going to find out from any of _them_."

"Can we go to Hiro's after? And then Byakuya's?" Makoto bounced back from his dismay quickly. He scrambled for his coat and then held hers out for her to put her arms into. "And we're gonna have to stop by Komaru's and tell her and Toko. Actually, maybe we should go there first, in case Emi's still up - "

Kyoko let him gush on and on about who to tell in what order and how, her only stock in the entire topic being the eager way he held himself and they knocked on each door, the way he drummed his hand against the steering wheel as he drove, the childish pride in his laugh each time they were congratulated.

* * *

They bought a home doppler so on nights when worry crept in, it could be eased almost immediately. Kyoko suspected at least half of the time, Makoto was only feigning concern to get her to lie down so he could press the probe to her stomach and hear the heartbeat, but she didn't challenge him on it. It wasn't a sound she tired of hearing, either.

When she started showing, Makoto began talking to the baby. He ignored her each time she pointed out, a little amused, that the baby couldn't make out sounds yet, much less comprehend the anecdotes from their time spent 'saving the world from despair' (minus all the death) that he had turned into a bedtime story.

She wouldn't admit it, but her favourite part of the whole thing - besides Makoto's sweetness, of course - was feeling the baby move. There first few weeks of irregular flutters that only she could feel brought with them a proper connection to the living thing inside her, a surge of awareness that besides her grandfather, it was the only biological piece of her puzzle. The flutters turned to kicks and hiccups and soon Makoto could feel them too, which was arguably better.

Keeping up with work wasn't difficult for her - although she fielded many a misogynistic comment from male suspects - but she knew Makoto worried she was overdoing it.

Once, she came in from a case just as he was pouring his morning tea. "You told me you wouldn't stay out all night," he said, frowning. He reached for another cup and poured one for her, too, while she shrugged carefully out of her coat.

When he handed her the tea, she took it with her right hand, overestimating the weight it could bear. She winced, which caught his attention immediately. He took the cup from her and rolled up her sleeve to reveal swollen skin that was already beginning to bruise.

" _Kyoko_."

"Don't fuss." With some effort, she batted him off. "The perpetrator fared much worse than I did. It's just a sprain." Later, Makoto would see the string of bruises on her back from where she'd been slammed into the wall and the surface scrapes on her knees from crawling for the gun before the killer could reach it.

"It's not just you anymore," Makoto said, glaring. "You're nearly seven months pregnant."

"Relax." She took his hand and brought it to the bottom curve of her stomach, where an elbow or knee was shifting against the skin. "It hasn't stopped since. Evidently, your child enjoys the adrenaline. Who would have thought it?"

He didn't smile. "This isn't funny. You could have been seriously hurt. Where was Shuichi?"

Shuichi had been unconscious at the time, but Kyoko knew that would only inspire another lecture from Makoto about endangering the teenager, so she simply said, "He was otherwise occupied. You realise women run _marathons_ while much more pregnant than I am?"

"You can't seriously compare tackling a _murderer_ on a whim with running a marathon after months of training!"

"I can because _I'm_ trained to do _this_. Makoto, I was learning self defence from eight years old." Before his death, her maternal grandfather had been an expert in most forms of fighting, and insisted she learn from him how to protect herself before Fuhito took her abroad on detective work. Over the years, she'd had a lot of practice implementing his teachings. "Pregnant or not, Makoto, I can handle myself."

Even as pain seared down her spine, she'd been able to hook her leg behind the man's knees and send him crashing to the ground. When he tried to yank her down with him, she struck the side of his head with her fist and twisted out of his grasp, laying her arms out to catch herself as she fell and then moving quickly retrieving the weapon. She backed out of the room with the barrel trained on him, stepping on his hand with her heel for good measure.

In the car home, she'd recounted the events to Shuichi as he nursed his head wound. He told her she was crazy and then, after a long moment, said he wanted her to teach him everything she knew.

Makoto was not so impressed. "Is your pride really that important to you? Just because you know you can doesn't mean you _should_." He wasn't worried anymore, Kyoko realised. He was mad. "What were you _thinking_?"

Truthfully, she couldn't answer that. They were only supposed to be rifling through the basement for the murder weapon when they found another two victims refrigerated. What they couldn't have known was that their suspect had some kind of electronic chip amongst the ice that sent an alert to his phone when the temperature changed. When they heard him on the stairs, they had to think quickly.

There was a way out. Shuichi had told her to follow him, that they had all the evidence they needed, but Kyoko had seen the police files dating back six years. He would be gone by the time the authorities got there, onto another town and more victims. Besides, she still hadn't figured out _why_ , and that was usually the best part.

Her body moved of its own accord deeper into the basement, too quick for Shiuchi to stop her. Afterwards, she herself had been shaken up at the realisation that however much she wanted this baby, however much she already loved it, all it took for her to forget its existence even as it stirred within her was her insatiable greed for answers. She was wired to be a detective, not a mother - when it had come down to it, her instincts were not to protect, but to solve.

The priorities of her subconscious unsettled her and raised more questions about her suitability as a parent than Makoto's scolding ever could. She cut him off mid-sentence to declare she was going to bed. He turned away, huffing, and left for work without saying goodbye.

That night, he brought home the ice cream she'd been craving and flowers.

"I'm still mad at you," he said, bringing her a spoon from the kitchen, "but I shouldn't have yelled." To Makoto, anything that involved a raised voice was a reason to be sorry. He leaned down to where she lay on the couch to nuzzle her belly. "I'm sorry, baby. Daddy never shouts usually. Mommy's the mean one." She swatted his head and he grinned. "Just kidding. Mommy's the one who's going to teach you how to be the best detective ever."

That only really made her feel guiltier.

It wasn't like Kyoko to question herself, but there was an awful lot about parenthood she didn't know how to do. She'd never even _held_ a baby before, didn't realise there were such strong opinions about formula versus breast milk until Makoto brought it up and was thoroughly confused by the contradicting advice about where and when and how a baby should be put to sleep.

Still, Kyoko knew she was both capable and a quick learner, so she had no doubt she would pick up on the practical side of things. It was... _everything else_ that was going to be the challenge.

There were moments when Makoto made her laugh and she couldn't help but wonder if she was really capable of loving anything as much as she loved him, if there was enough capacity for emotion inside of her for both of them. There were times she smoothed her hand over stretched skin in the shower and didn't feel a rush of excitement or affection, but instead, dread. There were days, between her husband's fussing and her baby's kicks, that Kyoko wasn't entirely sure she could trust herself to be needed by something without growing to resent it.

In the back of her mind, the place she worked hard not to visit, there were recurring questions. Had her father once had the same reservations she did? Had he too laid awake at night and questioned if people like them were really meant to be parents?

Was walking out on your child, eventually, as much a part of the Kirigiri legacy as being a detective?

* * *

The baby was due on the first day of the new school term.

"I can get Byakuya to cover for me," Makoto insisted, but Kyoko pointed out that if he left Togami with too much power, there might not be any students left by the time he returned. She promised to call if she needed him, but he sent her a text every hour on the hour to check in anyway.

As the week came to a close uneventfully, Makoto cited luck that the baby was waiting for him but Kyoko, feeling impossibly swollen and frustrated with the constant aching in her back, did not feel quite so fortunate. It wasn't until late Friday night that she felt a tightening across her abdomen.

She spent the rest of the night at home, pacing to speed things along and trying to ease the pain in a warm bath. Much to Makoto's distress, she put off going to the hospital until mid-morning, when her contractions were minutes apart and her water had long broken.

The delivery suite looked nothing like the burn unit where Kyoko had spent six weeks when she was thirteen - which had been most of the reason for her apprehension - but it had the same vivid antiseptic smell. The memory made her fingers curl and her palms itch in phantom sting.

They made her take off her gloves so they could hook her up to monitors and drips. Makoto, knowing this bothered her, kept his hands on top of hers like a shield until she told him it was fine.

She denied the offers of pain relief, knowing having any drug in her system would prolong the hospital stay (and, having now gained a healthy suspicion of surrendering her trust to foreign vials in moments of vulnerability.) When the nurses marvelled at her composure, her quietness, Makoto looked weary. "Even if you're not yelling about it, I can still tell you're hurting," he said.

After much pleading, she allowed him to sit behind her on the bed and rub her back. Even if it didn't ease the pain, it was a nice distraction and she knew it made him feel helpful. Between contractions, they shared ice chips and critiqued the investigative methods of the fictional detective on the room's television.

When it came time to push, he tied her hair up for her and stood by the side of the bed. With strangers examining her and pain tearing through her body, his close proximity was not a nuisance as much as it was a welcome comfort. She didn't know if that was because the last time she'd been in a hospital in pain she'd been small and alone and so she appreciated him more, or because her subconscious had finally surrendered, knowing that from this point on, teamwork wasn't optional.

After hours of only wincing and grunting, she screamed, finally, into Makoto's shoulder as the baby crowned. He ducked down to press his head against hers. "You're my hero, you know," he said, only loud enough for her to hear and sounding so in love with her that for a splinter of a second, she forgot they weren't alone.

Minutes later, a shrill, escalating shriek filled the room, both the most grating and the most breath-taking sound Kyoko had ever heard. The doctor laid the crying baby on her chest as they rubbed at it with a towel.

"Hey, buddy," Makoto cooed, tears immediately steaming a path down his cheeks as he cupped his shaking hand to the baby's head. "Hey, Koichi."

She must have missed them saying it was a boy. Had they even said if it was alright? It felt like the world was spinning. Without even realising, her arm had came up to support the baby - but Kyoko didn't know what she was supposed to do next and suddenly, she was _very_ aware there were other people in the room with them and she felt _incredibly_ exposed and everything still _hurt_ , so she pressed her face into Makoto again.

He took her hand in his gently, and with it, brushed the baby's cheek, along the slope of his face, down the curve of his ears. When she forced herself to look, she wanted to recoil her hand away - her touch was rough and ugly against the baby's softness, but Makoto held onto her with such tenderness she couldn't pull away.

Slowly, the baby's crying faded out into a low whine. He turned toward her finger on his cheek, his lips pursed.

"Hi," she breathed, and the baby went quiet, tiny fists stopping their frantic clamouring and relaxing, a nose nuzzling against her skin.

"Look what we made," Makoto whispered into her hair, awe in his voice, as if maybe he felt the same thing that she did click into place in exactly the same moment.

By the time the doctor was done with her and the nurses came to clean the baby up, Kyoko did not want to let him go.

* * *

Koichi had been wiped down, fed and dressed in a pale grey sleepsuit. Following a YouTube tutorial faithfully, Makoto swaddled him in the hospital blanket and then surrendered him to Kyoko to be rocked to sleep. They laid him down in the glass cot and after a few moments of Makoto stroking her hair, she let her own eyes drift shut.

When she woke, she felt disorientated for a long moment, the strange combination of no longer feeling her child inside her and the smell of the hospital room eliciting panic until Makoto's soft voice became clearer.

"...and if you're not really into sports that's cool, cause I'm not either. And ignore your great-grandpa, you _don't_ have to be a detective when you grow up – it won't make me and Mommy love you any less." He was standing by the window with his back to her, their son bundled in his arms. The baby made a tiny noise and Makoto began swaying slowly to soothe him. "Hey, be patient with me, okay? I don't know how to do this dad thing," he admitted quietly, "but I promise I'm gonna do my best."

Tears pricked in Kyoko's eyes. When Makoto turned, only now noticing she was awake, she quickly blinked them away and shifted to sit up in the bed.

"H-hey, take it easy," Makoto warned, moving toward her. There was a faint blush on his cheeks now he knew she'd been listening. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine." Every muscle in her lower body was screaming and she could feel herself bleeding, but Kyoko did not want to spend the night in hospital. She wanted to go home to her own bed, her own shower. She wanted to give her son a proper bath in the sink and be able to figure him out on her own, without nurses hovering with advice and judgement. "How is he?"

"He's good." Makoto perched on the edge of the bed to show her the baby. His eyes were shut still, but he already looked less red, less new. "He missed you."

She shifted in the twin bed to make more space, before patting the space beside her. Makoto eased himself into it and sat back, the baby anchored to his chest.

Kyoko yawned and laid her head beside Koichi, above Makoto's heart. "How long was I asleep?"

"Less than an hour." His hand came up to stroke the hair at the back of her neck. "You must be exhausted."

"I can sleep at home."

Makoto sighed. "The doctor is coming round in a bit to talk about discharging you - I think your threat about reporting him for drinking on the job swung it - but...you did _just_ gave birth. Don't you want to rest?"

"I can rest at home," she pointed out.

"If he's as stubborn as you are," Makoto said, looking down to where the baby was squirming, "I'm screwed."

Kyoko smirked and held a finger out for their son to latch a tiny fist around. "I apologise in advance."

"Hm." Makoto glanced at the clock on the wall. "Visiting hours are soon," he said, obviously trying to sound casual.

Kyoko lifted her head to glare. "Who did you call?"

"No-one!" Makoto gave a sheepish smile. "I _did_ text a picture of Koichi to everyone in my contacts though."

She groaned. "Just your sister and Hina. I don't have the energy for anyone else right now."

"Your grandfather said he was coming," Makoto admitted, wincing a little. "Don't look at me like that - have you ever tried to tell him no? It's not like he asked. He _told_ me he'd be here."

"You know," Kyoko said, "sleeping seems more appealing now."

"Ah, but then you'll miss all the praise for how beautiful he is," Makoto reasoned. He stroked soft fuzz of their sleeping son's hair, waspy lavender strands still sticky from birth. "Oh, while you were asleep, the nurse asked what we were putting on the birth certificate. I said Naegi-Kirigiri."

Kyoko yawned again. "I don't mind if you want your surname last." It, like first names and whether the baby was a boy or a girl, wasn't something they had spent much time discussing. The unspoken hope from the beginning had been a healthy baby they could take home - in light of how long they'd spent thinking they might never have that, the specifics hadn't much mattered.

"Nah, it sounds better that way." Makoto placed a kiss to the baby's head and smiled. "Besides," he said happily, "he's all you."

The nurses had said the same, but Kyoko wasn't convinced. He just looked like a baby to her (albeit a very cute one, although she accepted this observation was biased), no more like her than Makoto.

What he had most definitely inherited from his father was the peace he instilled in her, the way the chaos of her mind quieted just by breathing him in, the clarity his fierce hold on her hand brought to all the things she did not have answers for - as if for a moment, everything at last made sense and there was nothing left to solve.

"My turn," she commanded, sitting up to ease the baby out of his hold. Makoto moved his hand to her waist and tugged her close, his head leaning against her shoulder while she adjusted the warm weight in her arms.

"All the hoping paid off, huh?" Makoto said, softly, leaning into her.

The baby yawned awake, little wrinkles on his face forming as he did so and she wondered how she had ever thought there was a chance she wouldn't instantly love him.

"It did," she agreed, only able to tear her eyes way from her son for long enough to meet the tired, but oh-so-happy eyes of her husband. "It did."

* * *

 **I hope you guys enjoyed this piece as much as I enjoyed writing it.**

 **Thanks for the love and stay tuned for a time skip in my next work!**


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